Despite LUNA woes, MoneyGram to use stablecoin in remittances

abdelaziz Fathi

US money-transfer company MoneyGram is set to launch a new service that enables consumers to send money using USD Coin (USDC) and convert directly to and from fiat.

MoneyGram

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes said the company will allow crypto wallets connected to the Stellar Network to access its global retail platform. Working alongside Circle, Stellar blockchain will enable users to convert their holdings into its popular stablecoin and then cash out through MoneyGram. The combined effort also offers a near-instant backend settlement, account funding and local fiat withdrawals.

The partnership is expected to launch soon in select jurisdictions, possibly starting with El Salvador, which adopted bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, with an expanded international rollout planned in the future.

“The world of crypto and the world of fiat are not really compatible today. We’re trying to be a bridge from the crypto world to the fiat world. If a country like El Salvador is going to make bitcoin seamless with US dollars in-country, I think that consumers, through MoneyGram, should be able to transfer bitcoin to El Salvador, or transfer dollars and convert them to bitcoin,” Holmes said.

“If that’s where the world is going, let’s participate in that world and let’s see how we can help fulfill that opportunity,” he added.

A vote of confidence in stablecoins

The move came as financial services giants, including PayPal and Square, have been increasingly making moves in the crypto space.

MoneyGram’s recent initiative came barely a year after it officially cut ties with Ripple Labs in light of the ongoing legal fight with the US Securities & Exchange Commission. The two firms put their tie-up, which dates back to 2018, on hold after the SEC charged Ripple with conducting a $1.3 billion illegal securities offering.

Alongside a partnership to pilot Ripple’s XRP in cross-border payments, the token issuer bought a $30 million stake in MoneyGram in 2019. The Nasdaq-listed firm revealed it netted more than $60 million in fees from using XRP transfers as an alternative source of revenues in both payment and settlement services

The move also comes even as the meltdown of Terra’s token, which once ranked among the top 10 most valuable cryptocurrencies, has shaken confidence in other stablecoins, and the broader cryptocurrency markets miserably collapsed.

LUNA tanked to virtually zero a couple of hours ago after having peaked close to $120 last month, as per data from CoinMarketCap. Additionally, its sister stablecoin TerraUSD, or UST, lost its dollar peg before the collapse.

Read this next

Digital Assets

FINMA-regulated crypto bank SEBA Bank rebrands to AMINA

“As we look forward to 2024, our ambition is to accelerate the growth of our strategic hubs in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Abu Dhabi, and to continue our global expansion, building on all the successes we have laid down over the past years.”

Retail FX

Good For New Traders: Free Crypto Sign Up Bonus No Deposit Required

In cryptocurrency trading, where innovation knows no bounds and the stakes are as dynamic as the digital assets themselves, the concept of no-deposit bonuses comes off as an enticement both for old and new traders. 

Digital Assets

Binance announces banking triparty agreement

“We’ve developed a solution that ensures our institutional clients can optimize their collateral and cryptocurrency investments, modeled after the traditional markets’ trading conduct. We are in close discussions with an array of banking partners and institutional investors who have also expressed strong interest in participating.”

Digital Assets

CoinEx fined $2 million in Québec, Canada

“This new decision follows the important decision obtained in XT.com earlier this year and is part of the AMF’s offensive against crypto asset trading platforms operating illegally in Québec that have not entered into pre-registration undertakings.”

Industry News

FINRA fines BofA Securities $24 million for spoofing in US Treasuries

BofA Securities failed to detect spoofing due to inadequate supervisory systems. These systems were not equipped to identify manual spoofing by traders.

Retail FX

Belgium regulator blacklists FXP360, Appex Finance, and Wise-Markets

Belgium’s financial watchdog, the Financial Services and Markets Authority ‎‎(FSMA), has issued a warning against the unauthorized activities of multiple ‎ platforms that are offering investments in the country without ‎complying with Belgian financial legislation.‎

Digital Assets

MicroStrategy piles on Bitcoin, acquiring 0.90% of circulating supply

MicroStrategy, the world’s largest Bitcoin corporate holder, has further increased its holdings of the primary cryptocurrency. According to a recent filing, the company acquired an additional 16,130 bitcoins between November 1 and November 29, spending $593.3 million at an average price of $36,785 per bitcoin.

Digital Assets

Paxos gets nod to issue dollar-backed stablecoins in UAE

Stablecoin issuer Paxos has received preliminary approval from Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority to issue U.S. dollar-backed virtual currencies and provide crypto-brokerage and custody services.

Digital Assets

Flare Labs Begins Testing FAssets on Coston Testnet Paving Way for Non-Smart Contracts to Flare

Flare Labs has introduced FAssets on the Coston testnet, enabling the integration of non-smart contract tokens like BTC, XRP, and DOGE into the DeFi ecosystem.

<