MoneyGram Launches Ramps on Solana, Following Validator Move

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MoneyGram Ramps is live on Solana, and the company said Tuesday that Rift, an AI-powered trading app, is the first wallet on the network to integrate it.

Ramps is MoneyGram’s API for converting cash into crypto and back. Through Rift, users can deposit cash in more than 25 countries and withdraw it in more than 170 countries and territories, MoneyGram said. The product is now built into the payments module of Solana Developer Platform, the toolkit Solana offers app developers building on the network.

MoneyGram Took an Infrastructure-First Approach

The launch follows a sequence that MoneyGram’s earlier blockchain expansion did not. MoneyGram became a validator on the Solana network on June 22, about seven weeks before Ramps went live there.

A validator role means MoneyGram now helps process and confirm transactions on Solana itself, a technical commitment that sits below the level of a customer-facing product. When MoneyGram first brought Ramps to the Stellar network in 2023, it did so without a comparable validator role announced beforehand.

That order, infrastructure first and product second, reads as MoneyGram building a formal stake in a network before launching a commercial product on it, rather than doing both at once or product first.

MoneyGram’s blockchain strategy also extends to stablecoins. In June, the company launched MGUSD, a native U.S.-dollar stablecoin issued on the Stellar blockchain as part of its broader payments infrastructure. MoneyGram said MGUSD is designed to support financial services across its global network, with Bridge serving as the issuer and M0 and Fireblocks providing supporting infrastructure.

MoneyGram Targets Global Payments

Anthony Soohoo, MoneyGram’s chairman and CEO, said the Solana launch is “another step toward building a truly open, global payments network.”

Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation, said Solana is “infrastructure for the more than six billion people on the internet” and that connecting to MoneyGram’s network lets developers build financial applications with real-world reach.

The partnership gives Kraken users a way to convert crypto into local cash while extending MoneyGram’s role as an off-ramp provider for digital asset platforms. The companies said the initial rollout would focus on cash withdrawals, with plans to expand the partnership to local bank deposits and cross-border payment flows.

Rift Becomes First Solana Wallet With Ramps

Rift operates as a self-custodial app giving users access to equities, commodities, crypto and foreign exchange markets around the clock, along with trading signals it generates internally.

It is currently the only wallet on Solana with Ramps built in. Through the integration, Rift users can access MoneyGram’s cash-to-crypto and crypto-to-cash capabilities across the company’s international network.

Whether other Solana wallets follow Rift, and how fast, will show whether MoneyGram’s validator-first approach on Solana translates into the kind of adoption its three-year run on Stellar has produced.