MoneyGram has launched MGUSD, a native U.S. dollar stablecoin, positioning its own digital currency at the center of a global payments network that reaches more than 60 million active customers.
MGUSD runs natively on the Stellar blockchain, a Tuesday announcement revealed. Bridge, a Stripe company, serves as the regulated issuer under the GENIUS Act framework, with M0's smart contract infrastructure handling minting and burning.
Fireblocks provides the custody infrastructure, with MoneyGram holding MGUSD in Fireblocks wallets before distributing funds to customer wallets embedded in the MoneyGram app. The stablecoin launches initially in the U.S., with global scaling planned.
"MGUSD is the stablecoin we built for our customers, for the families sending money home and for the billions of people around the world with limited financial access," MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Anthony Soohoo said in a statement.
The launch also deepens a partnership with the Stellar Development Foundation that stretches back more than five years, during which MoneyGram ran stablecoin-powered money movement using Circle's USDC before graduating to its own issuance.
Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon called MGUSD the "next milestone" in demonstrating what a purpose-built blockchain can deliver when paired with a trusted payments network.
MoneyGram has been methodically building toward this point.
The company tapped Fireblocks for stablecoin settlements in December and was named an anchor remittance validator on the Stripe and Paradigm-backed Tempo blockchain last month.
In May, it also expanded its on-ramp footprint by supporting crypto-to-cash withdrawals for Kraken users.
The move puts MoneyGram alongside a wave of legacy payments players pushing proprietary stablecoin rails. Western Union has announced a USDPT stablecoin on Solana, while PayPal and Visa have each embedded stablecoin infrastructure into their own cross-border settlement stacks.