MoneyGram has taken a deeper dive into blockchain infrastructure, joining Solana as a network validator and signing on to the Solana Developer Platform, the payments company announced on June 22.
The move puts MoneyGram directly into Solana’s consensus layer: the company now stakes SOL, operates an active validator that processes transaction blocks, and helps secure and optimize network performance. It also gains access to the Solana Developer Platform — a toolkit aimed at institutions building compliant financial products on Solana — alongside participants that include Mastercard.
MoneyGram framed the decision as the next phase of a multi-year blockchain strategy that already touches its treasury, product development and payments operations. “Operating a validator places the company directly within Solana’s consensus process and allows it to help secure the network at the protocol level,” said Luke Tuttle, MoneyGram’s Chief Product and Technology Officer. “We help run the rails we move money on,” he added, noting that the company is also developing products to support money movement across different forms of value.
Sheraz Shere, General Manager of Payments and Commerce at the Solana Foundation, said MoneyGram’s participation is a sign of how global payments firms are increasingly becoming active network participants as more payment flows move on-chain.
MoneyGram’s CEO Anthony Soohoo framed the effort as infrastructure-first: “Blockchain infrastructure has become a core component of the company’s payment systems,” he said, adding that future work will be built on “open, interoperable stablecoin rails that anyone, anywhere can access.”
No new Solana-based customer products were announced. Instead, the company described the validator role as part of a longer-term commitment to open blockchain infrastructure for cross-border payments.
The Solana announcement follows MoneyGram’s recent push into stablecoins: on June 2 the company launched MGUSD, a U.S. dollar stablecoin issued through Bridge (a Stripe-owned firm). According to MoneyGram, M0 provides the mint/burn infrastructure while Fireblocks supplies custody services. MGUSD joins a broader payments roadmap that has expanded through partnerships with Stellar, Crossmint, Fireblocks and Kraken, and includes stablecoin remittances, crypto-to-cash withdrawals and digital-dollar products in multiple markets.
Solana is now the third blockchain where MoneyGram operates an official validator. The company has previously served as an anchor remittance validator on the Tempo blockchain and as a validator for Midnight, a Cardano privacy-focused sidechain. MoneyGram also worked with Ripple from 2019 to 2021, using RippleNet and XRP-based On-Demand Liquidity products until that relationship ended amid the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple.
Taken together, MoneyGram’s validator activity and developer-platform membership signal a shift from using blockchain merely as a payments channel to helping operate and secure the underlying rails — a notable step for a legacy remittance firm moving deeper into crypto infrastructure.
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