From Ripple to Solana: crypto-TradFi partnerships that go nowhere
After Solana boasted this week about its exclusive partnership with remittance giant Western Union for its USDPT stablecoin, researchers remained skeptical that the partnership will gain meaningful traction. The unfortunate reality of such announcements is initial hype and minimal follow-up.
Indeed, for nearly a decade, crypto partnerships with traditional finance — and remittance companies in particular — have almost always fizzled out after their initial fanfare.
Crypto giants like Ripple and Stellar have announced a dizzying array of press releases that ultimately resulted in minimal on-chain activity.
According to a complaint by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, for example, Ripple “made an avalanche of public statements” over the years in an attempt to increase the value of XRP as it sold over $2 billion worth of the token.
Ripple contested that characterization and lost one complaint on the slightly lower amount of $728 million worth of unregistered securities via institutional sales of XRP.
Protos has already covered Ripple’s lackluster deals with:
- FairFX
- RationalFX
- Exchange4Free
- UniPAY
- UnionPay
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Mercy Corps
- Mojaloop Foundation
- Institute for Business and Social Impact
- Lunu
- Travelex Bank
- Moneygram
Read more: Years of hype but still no deal: SWIFT sidesteps XRP again
Ripple, Stellar, and more failed crypto-TradFi partnerships
Stellar, founded by Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb, has also announced a variety of partnerships that expired after minimal traction.
The company’s marquee partnership with IBM World Wire, for example, would have utilized stellar (XLM) for cross-border payments. However, it has now been sunsetted as open-source with IBM publishing the code on GitHub and mostly abandoning the initiative.
Stellar also had a partnership with Wyre to develop on- and off-ramps for digital asset payments. Wyre ended those business operations in June 2023, terminating the partnership.
Like Ripple, Stellar also had a failed pilot program with MoneyGram. The remittance giant announced plans to launch a non-custodial wallet at a September 2023 Stellar Development Foundation meeting.
MoneyGram had initially planned to launch it in Q1 2024 but instead, while it didn’t exactly cancel plans outright, pivoted to developing an app that enables users to send and receive USDC with an apparent off-ramp.
Although over 90% of USDC volume occurs on the Ethereum, Solana, and BNB blockchains, in that order, a tiny amount of USDC does technically transact on the Stellar blockchain.
Ultimately, partnerships between decentralized finance and traditional finance often disappoint early supporters.
Indeed, a 2019 study of Ripple’s remittance announcements concluded, despite early optimism about the partnerships, that meaningful integration remained elusive.
Similarly, a 2024 study of crypto-remittance partnerships detailed how they have repeatedly encountered technical complexity and resistance by incumbent financial institutions.
A 2025 OECD working paper concluded, “The use of blockchain technology is unlikely to eliminate or address the challenge of last-mile delivery in cash.”
Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.