MoneyGram, the world's second-largest money transfer company, has officially become a Solana validator, marking a significant deepening of its blockchain infrastructure strategy.
The company announced recently that it has launched a validator node on Solana and joined the Solana Developer Platform as an infrastructure partner. As a validator, MoneyGram can now stake SOL tokens, process blocks, and participate directly in securing the network.
The move connects MoneyGram's global footprint, nearly 500,000 retail locations serving over 60 million customers, to Solana's on-chain infrastructure. Luke Tuttle, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MoneyGram, described the significance plainly: running a validator puts MoneyGram inside Solana's consensus layer, effectively helping the company run the rails it moves money on.
MoneyGram framed the decision as a natural progression of a five-year strategy to integrate crypto into its core payments platform. That journey began in 2019 with a partnership with RippleNet, through which the company processed billions of transactions using XRP-based On-Demand Liquidity products. That arrangement was wound down following Ripple's legal battle with the SEC in 2021.
The timing of this expansion is notable. Solana has been on a significant run in institutional adoption, with the network recently surpassing every other blockchain in real-world asset wallet holders. As covered in Solana's RWA milestone report, the network hit 285,971 RWA holders in June 2026, ahead of Ethereum and BNB Chain, driven by a wave of institutional issuers choosing Solana as their primary distribution layer.
Solana is now the third network where MoneyGram operates a validator. In May, the company was designated as one of a select group of institutions to run a validator for remittance transactions on the Tempo network. It is also among the early node operators on the Midnight network, launched in March 2026 by Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.
The Solana announcement comes less than a month after MoneyGram launched MGUSD, a US dollar-backed stablecoin built on the Stellar network. MGUSD is currently available to US customers through MoneyGram's mobile app.
Chairman and CEO Anthony Soohoo positioned the Solana move as part of an ongoing build-out rather than a standalone pivot. "MoneyGram has spent the past several years integrating blockchain into our payment infrastructure, and everything we are building now leverages this foundation," he said. He also emphasised that engaging with Solana is the next step in that journey for both companies.
The broader regulatory environment is also shifting in favour of moves like this. The CLARITY Act, currently on the brink of becoming America's first comprehensive crypto law, would establish clearer legal frameworks for exactly the kind of blockchain infrastructure MoneyGram is now building on, giving traditional financial institutions firmer ground to deepen their on-chain commitments.
BREAKING: @MoneyGram has joined Solana Developer Platform (SDP) as an infrastructure partner and is now an active validator on Solana.
