MoneyGram Ramps on Stellar: Cash to USDC and Back

MoneyGram Ramps by the numbers (October 2026)

MoneyGram's crypto-to-cash service launched on Stellar on 10 June 2022 and was relaunched as MoneyGram Ramps on 2 May 2025. The Stellar Development Foundation reported nearly $30M of volume in its first three years. MoneyGram cites 480,000+ locations, cash-out in 170+ countries and cash-in in 25+.

• Launch: 10 June 2022, with cash-in first in Canada, Kenya, the Philippines and the US, and LOBSTR and Vibrant as launch wallets. Fees were waived for the first 12 months.
• Volume: "nearly $30 million" between launch and June 2025, per SDF's "Three years with MoneyGram" post. The top countries were the US, Canada, Poland, Ukraine, Colombia, Mexico, Uganda, the UK and Ecuador.
• Coverage: 26 countries offer both cash-in and cash-out on MoneyGram's map, including the US, Canada, Germany, Poland, Kenya, South Africa and Argentina. MoneyGram's 2025 launch release said 30+ cash-in countries; its current site says 25+.
• The asset: Circle's USDC. DefiLlama counted $379.1M of USDC on Stellar on 9 October 2026; see stablecoins on Stellar.
• Partnership: MoneyGram and Stellar extended their partnership for multiple years on 22 April 2026. MoneyGram is also one of the ten organisations in Stellar's top validator tier; see the Stellar Consensus Protocol.

How to choose

• You have cash and want USDC: check that your country is a cash-in country first. Many are cash-out only, including Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines on the current lists.
• You hold USDC and need cash, possibly in another country: this is what Ramps does best. Cash-out covers far more countries, and you can collect at any participating location.
• You need to move more than 2,500 USDC: Ramps is the wrong tool. A bank-connected anchor or exchange is better suited; compare options in Stellar anchors explained.
• You have a bank account and want the cheapest route: compare an exchange or bank-rail anchor. Cash handling has costs that show up somewhere, even if not as a line item.

What MoneyGram Ramps is

MoneyGram Ramps is MoneyGram's service connecting its cash network to stablecoin wallets. On Stellar it acts as a non-issuing anchor: MoneyGram takes or pays out local cash and moves Circle's USDC, rather than its own token. Wallets integrate it; users never deal with MoneyGram outside the wallet's screens and the counter.

MoneyGram introduced Ramps on 2 May 2025 as "the latest evolution of the MoneyGram APIs", saying it cut sandbox setup for developers from 12–15 days to about five minutes. The Stellar developer documentation's older MoneyGram integration guide, written under the service's previous name, now redirects to MoneyGram's Ramps documentation, so Ramps is the same service under a new name. MoneyGram says it holds a New York BitLicense and is registered with FinCEN as a money services business, which is why wallets can offer the service without their own money-transmitter licence.

Cash-out, step by step

Cash-out follows SEP-24: the wallet authenticates with SEP-10, opens MoneyGram's hosted page, and waits. Once you have entered your details, MoneyGram gives the wallet an address and memo. You send USDC within 30 minutes, receive a reference number, and collect cash at any participating location.

1. Log in. The wallet proves it controls your Stellar account by signing a SEP-10 challenge from MoneyGram's server.
2. Fill in MoneyGram's page. The wallet opens MoneyGram's interactive web page, where you enter the amount, your details and identity information.
3. Send the USDC. When the transaction reaches the "pending user transfer start" status, the wallet sends your USDC to MoneyGram's account with the exact memo it was given. MoneyGram's guide is explicit: this must happen within 30 minutes, or the transaction cannot be completed.
4. Get the reference number. Once MoneyGram has the funds, the wallet shows a reference number.
5. Collect the cash. Take the reference number and a photo ID to any participating MoneyGram location; you do not have to choose one in advance.

Before you collect, MoneyGram's transaction page has a "Cancel transfer" button that refunds the USDC. The memo is the step that goes wrong: it is how MoneyGram matches your payment to your transaction, and a payment sent without it leaves you depending on support to sort it out. Wallets that integrate Ramps fill it in for you, which is the main reason to use one rather than sending by hand.

Cash-in, step by step

Cash-in runs the other way and has one extra constraint: you pick the deposit location in advance. You receive a confirmation code, hand over cash and the code at the counter, and MoneyGram sends USDC to your Stellar account. Your account needs a USDC trustline first.

LOBSTR's guide tells users to make the cash deposit within 24 hours of starting, and says the USDC arrives a few minutes after. Unlike a cash-out, a cash-in cannot be cancelled from the app; if you never visit the counter, the transaction expires. The trustline matters because a Stellar account can only receive an asset it has opted into, and each trustline reserves 0.5 XLM; see Stellar fees and reserves.

Countries and limits

MoneyGram's developer guide sets production limits of 15–950 USDC per cash-in and 15–2,500 USDC per cash-out. MoneyGram's map shows 26 countries with both directions available. Cash-out reaches 170+ countries and territories. The service is not available in Alaska, Louisiana or Hawaii.

The 26 countries with both directions are: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Denmark, Gambia, Germany, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, Ireland, Kenya, Malawi, Norway, Oman, Poland, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, the US and Zambia. LOBSTR's list matches and adds Saudi Arabia for cash-in only. LOBSTR also says limits can vary by location and transaction frequency. Neither MoneyGram nor the wallets we checked publish daily or monthly caps, so assume the per-transaction figures are not the whole story if you plan to use it often.

Coverage changes. The Philippines was a launch cash-in country in 2022 and is cash-out only on today's lists. Check the map in your wallet before relying on a specific country.

Fees — what is and isn't published

MoneyGram does not publish a fee schedule or spread for Ramps. Circle's usdc.com says MoneyGram may charge fees that vary by location and amount, and LOBSTR says foreign-exchange fees may apply. The only fixed fee fact on record is that the service was free for its first 12 months after June 2022.

In practice the cost is in the quote: the amount of local currency you receive for your USDC, or the USDC you receive for your cash, compared with the market rate. Compare that number to the mid-market rate before confirming. The Stellar network fee for sending USDC is negligible, a fraction of a cent. If your wallet adds its own fee, it should show it separately.

KYC — who sees your ID

MoneyGram performs identity checks itself, inside its SEP-24 page. Your wallet can pre-fill basic fields such as name and address, but the identity data goes to MoneyGram, not to the wallet. At the counter, the agent checks your photo ID and reference number.

That is the point of SEP-24: the regulated party collects KYC in its own interface, and the wallet does not need to store identity documents. MoneyGram's production stellar.toml lists no separate SEP-12 KYC server, consistent with KYC living inside the hosted page. Wallet partners complete business verification (KYB) with MoneyGram before they can integrate. The trade-off is that you are trusting MoneyGram's data handling, the same as at any MoneyGram counter.

Which wallets support it

MoneyGram publishes no complete list. LOBSTR and Vibrant were the 2022 launch wallets; Vibrant is now called Vesseo. MoneyGram's Ramps site features Decaf, Vesseo and Amero, and SDF's 2025 post features Decaf. Check your wallet's "deposit" or "withdraw" screen for a MoneyGram option.

Integration has also changed. MoneyGram's guide says new Stellar partners now integrate through a widget SDK with API keys, while existing whitelisted partners stay on the SEP-10 and SEP-24 path. Either way, the user-facing steps are similar. For a walkthrough of one integrated wallet, see our LOBSTR guide; for others, the best Stellar wallets.

Beyond Stellar: Solana and MGUSD

Ramps is no longer Stellar-only: it went live on Solana in August 2026, with Rift as the first Solana wallet. Separately, MoneyGram launched MGUSD on 2 June 2026, its own stablecoin issued on Stellar by Bridge and held in a self-custodial wallet inside the MoneyGram app.

MGUSD and Ramps are different products. Ramps moves USDC into and out of third-party wallets. MGUSD lives in MoneyGram's consumer app, launched in the US first. In April 2026 MoneyGram said its app's stablecoin balance, built with Stellar, Crossmint and Circle's USDC, was live in Colombia and newly launched in El Salvador. We found no source saying Ramps supports MGUSD. For how issuer-backed coins differ, see how stablecoins hold their value.

What you are trusting

• MoneyGram to honour the reference number, pay the quoted amount and handle your identity data.
• Circle to keep USDC redeemable. Circle's issuer can freeze balances; that is a compliance power held by one party.
• Your wallet to send the right amount, to the right address, with the right memo, inside the 30-minute window.
• Coverage to stay the same while your transaction is in flight. It usually does, but country lists change.

How these fit together

MoneyGram Ramps is the cash end of the Stellar stablecoin stack. Circle issues USDC; Stellar settles it in seconds for a fraction of a cent; MoneyGram converts it to and from paper money in places where bank accounts are scarce or slow. SEP-24 is what lets any compliant wallet plug in without building its own compliance team. That design is why Stellar's payments story is stronger than its DeFi numbers suggest; see stablecoins for cross-border payments.

The takeaway

For moving up to a few thousand dollars between cash and USDC, especially for cash-out abroad, MoneyGram Ramps works and the steps are simple. Check that your country supports the direction you need, send within 30 minutes with the memo your wallet supplies, and compare the quote with the market rate, because the fee is in the rate, not on a price list.

Sources: MoneyGram press releases (10 June 2022, 2 May 2025, 22 April 2026, 2 June 2026); MoneyGram Ramps site and Stellar integration guide v1.2 (xramps.moneygram.com, July 2026); live stellar.toml files at mgxanchor.moneygram.com and stellar.moneygram.com; SEP-24 v3.8.0; stellar.org, "Three years with MoneyGram" (10 June 2025); LOBSTR help centre (MoneyGram cash-in, cancellation, limits, countries); usdc.com, "How to buy USDC with MoneyGram"; The Defiant, MoneyGram Ramps on Solana (August 2026); DefiLlama stablecoins API, 9 Oct 2026.