Why MoneyGram Built Its Own Stablecoin Instead of Using Someone Else's | Anthony Soohoo, MoneyGram
episode
Talking Tokens: Crypto, Onchain Finance, Investing
36 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is MGUSD and why did MoneyGram decide to create its own stablecoin?
If we take a step back, just like the spreadsheet was a killer app for the launch of the PC era, and then the browser was the killer app that kind of unlocked the whole internet. Initially, the techie and the geeks that were really into the technology were the ones that adopted the technology early. But as it tried to go more mainstream, more ubiquitous, you actually have to abstract a lot of it. If you think about crypto, it's going to follow the same pattern.
Today we are sitting down with MoneyGram CEO Anthony Suhu, who recently announced MGUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin integrated into its global network and consumer app. It is designed to support cross-border payments, digital dollar access, and more for users around the world. We'll get into it today, but Anthony, welcome on.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, thank you for being here. So MoneyGram has supported stablecoin-based transfers before. So It's not necessarily new on that front, but launching your own stablecoin is arguably a more strategic move, bigger, etc. So what kind of changed internally for you guys that made you decide to go down this route?
Some of the things as we learned about applications is that it's very difficult to think about a stable point as just the asset. And when you're done, all of a sudden you're going to get a bunch of people using it, especially outside of trading. What we actually, when we took a step back, I think we had two big insights. One is that the network is the computer, which what we mean by that is that when you think about the internet, a lot of the logic, the intelligence has moved up to the cloud. And when people are trying to deliver services to the consumer, the applications have also moved up to the cloud. But when you think about issuance, of currency and how we send money today, they're all kind of running through maybe unintelligent rails.
And so what we started realizing is that we have a very specific use case, which is our consumers need to send money from one place in one part in one country to another part of the country in a different part of the world. And that type of send, while it sounds very simple, is actually super complex. It comes down, it's complex from a compliance standpoint, it's complex from AML standpoint. It's also just complex because a lot of times the transparency in terms of the status of where things are being sent are not as transparent as you would like it to be. So taking a step back, we realized that Stablecoin specifically an MGUSD that we can control, would allow us to put intelligence in our payments network.
And we see it as kind of the foundational step for us to build many other applications on top, but using that as one of the intelligence layers around distribution, if that makes sense.
Yeah. What type of other applications would you be building on top of it?
Well, it would be us as well as any partners that potentially would want to build on top. But when you think about anything you want to do with contracts, you can imagine people paying a contractor back home and having certain criteria before something launches. You can see it being used for real estate transactions. I know that people have built and use our rails for payroll, for instance, where they're paying As an example, cruise workers that live in various different areas, when you think about payroll, they actually have to cross, they have to send it to all these different accounts. So how do you do that in a very simple way? And they all have different jurisdictions, different rules about how payroll happens.
And so adding that intelligence allows I think a different form of payment versus requiring a lot more manual work or a lot more intelligence off network, if that makes sense. And so that's why we're excited about it. And I think this is just the first step in terms of making payments more intelligent.
And what would you say is kind of the unlock here with, I mean, MoneyGram's already existing, millions of customers, a half a million retail locations, I believe.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is MGUSD and why did MoneyGram decide to create its own stablecoin?
0:00–5:30
2
How does MoneyGram’s existing global network enable MGUSD adoption?
5:30–10:56
3
Why is self‑custody and user education crucial for MGUSD users?
10:56–16:00
4
How does MoneyGram integrate cash and digital payments through MGUSD?
16:00–21:39
5
Which partners and technologies power the MGUSD stablecoin infrastructure?
21:39–27:16
6
What are the envisioned consumer and business use cases for MGUSD?
27:16–32:59
7
How does MoneyGram address regional regulatory and adoption challenges?
32:59–35:00
8
What key lessons and advice does Anthony Soohoo share for building financial infrastructure?
35:00–36:14
Speakers
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