MoneyGram Opens Its Global Cash Network to Solana
MoneyGram Ramps is now live on Solana, allowing wallets, exchanges and apps to connect digital assets with MoneyGram's existing fiat infrastructure through a single API.
Key Takeaways
- MoneyGram Ramps is now native to Solana.
- Rift is the first wallet integration.
- Solana expands, rather than replaces, MoneyGram’s Stellar strategy.
- Legacy payment networks are moving deeper into stablecoin infrastructure.
MoneyGram Brings Ramps Directly to Solana
MoneyGram announced on August 11 that MoneyGram Ramps is now live natively on Solana, giving wallets, exchanges and developers access to its cash-to-crypto and crypto-to-cash infrastructure through a single API.
Developers can connect their applications to MoneyGram’s existing network rather than building separate banking and cash-access integrations market by market. The company provides API credentials, sandbox access, documentation and SDKs for integrating Ramps into digital-asset products.
Rift became the first Solana wallet to launch the service for users, allowing customers to move between digital assets and local currency from within the wallet’s broader trading experience.
MoneyGram also brings something most crypto-native companies cannot easily reproduce: nearly 500,000 retail locations across its global payments network.
The Bigger Reach Is on the Cash-Out Side
Cash deposits into digital assets are currently supported in more than 25 countries, while crypto-to-cash withdrawals reach more than 170 countries and territories.
For wallets and payment apps, the wider withdrawal coverage solves a very different problem from moving assets onchain. Digital tokens can already travel globally, but turning them into usable local cash still depends on exchanges, banking relationships or regional payout infrastructure. MoneyGram gives developers access to an existing retail network for that last step.
The service is much more limited in the opposite direction. A user in one of the 170-plus withdrawal markets cannot automatically walk into a MoneyGram location and buy digital assets with cash, because the cash-in service is available in far fewer jurisdictions.
That makes the current setup particularly relevant for remittances and payment apps serving markets where recipients still rely heavily on physical cash.
MoneyGram Was Already Building on Solana
The Ramps launch follows MoneyGram’s deeper move into Solana infrastructure earlier this summer.
On June 22, the Solana Foundation announced that MoneyGram had become an active validator on the network and joined the Solana Developer Platform, or SDP, as an infrastructure partner.
Ramps is now integrated into SDP’s payments module, allowing developers building through the platform to access MoneyGram’s fiat infrastructure alongside Solana’s blockchain tools.
MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Anthony Soohoo described the company’s direction in simple terms:
The future of payments is built on access.
Less than two months after becoming a validator and SDP partner, MoneyGram has now opened one of its own payment products directly to applications built on Solana. The relationship has moved from participating in the network’s infrastructure to giving developers a practical way to connect Solana-based products with fiat cash.
Ecosystem Split
MoneyGram’s Dual-Chain Blueprint
Solana Adds Another Layer to MoneyGram’s Multichain Strategy
The Solana launch does not replace MoneyGram’s existing work on Stellar.
MoneyGram launched MGUSD in June with native issuance on Stellar. Bridge, a Stripe company, serves as the regulated issuer, while M0 provides infrastructure supporting minting and burning.
MGUSD is designed around MoneyGram’s own financial network. Ramps serves a different role on Solana by allowing external wallets and applications to connect to the company’s fiat on- and off-ramp infrastructure.
Stellar can remain the native home of MGUSD while Solana becomes another blockchain where MoneyGram’s cash-access network is available directly to developers. MoneyGram does not need to move every blockchain product onto one chain for the strategy to become multichain.
Traditional Payment Giants Are Building Around the Same Problem
MoneyGram’s Solana expansion comes as other established payment companies are also pushing deeper into stablecoins and blockchain settlement.
Western Union is developing its own stablecoin strategy around Solana, including the USDPT stablecoin and a Digital Asset Network intended to connect digital payments with its existing distribution infrastructure.
MoneyGram is taking a different route. Instead of centering the Solana expansion on a new stablecoin, it is giving third-party applications access to its existing cash rails through Ramps.
Both companies are also involved in the Open USD initiative alongside Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock and more than 140 other participants, putting remittance companies, card networks, asset managers and blockchain infrastructure providers into the same broader stablecoin push.
The common challenge is no longer simply issuing or transferring a digital dollar. Wallet access, compliance, liquidity, fiat conversion and real-world payout infrastructure determine whether those assets can move beyond crypto-native markets.
MoneyGram’s Solana launch fits into that shift by opening an existing global cash network to applications built onchain. For developers, the value is not another token to integrate, but a way to connect onchain value with the fiat infrastructure users still depend on outside crypto.
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
