What did MoneyGram's use of XRP prove, and was ODL volume organic?

The full answer

What did MoneyGram agree to do with Ripple and XRP?

On June 17, 2019, MoneyGram signed a commercial agreement with a Ripple affiliate to use Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product, formerly called xRapid, together with XRP, for cross-border non-US dollar settlements. MoneyGram’s 2022 proxy statement, filed with the SEC, records this [1]. The mechanics of that product are covered in how ODL uses XRP.

The same day, Ripple agreed to buy up to $50.0 million of MoneyGram common stock and warrants. At signing Ripple bought 5,610,923 shares at $4.10 each plus a warrant, and on November 22, 2019 MoneyGram closed on the exercise of its right to draw. The held passages do not show the split amounts [1]. Ripple was therefore both a shareholder in MoneyGram and its ODL counterparty.

How much of MoneyGram’s US–Mexico flow went through XRP?

That 10% figure is Ripple’s account of what MoneyGram said. MoneyGram’s own filing gives no corridor share [1].

How much did Ripple pay MoneyGram, and why did the partnership end?

MoneyGram’s proxy statement says Ripple compensated it in XRP for developing and bringing liquidity to foreign exchange markets and for providing a reliable level of foreign exchange trading activity. MoneyGram called this compensation market development fees [1]. Under the agreement MoneyGram paid Ripple no fees for using ODL, and there were no claw back or refund provisions [1].

MoneyGram’s results release of February 22, 2021 says its results for 2020 and 2019 include Ripple market development fees of $50.2 million and $11.3 million, respectively [23]. On timing, the filing is precise: MoneyGram stopped transacting under the agreement in early December 2020, did not resume, and the two companies terminated it on March 7, 2021. MoneyGram received no market development fees in 2021 [1]. The filing passages held do not give a reason for the stop.

Ripple then exercised warrants in March 2021 and sold 774,546 MoneyGram shares between March 23 and March 30, 2021. On March 30, 2021 Ripple filed a 13D/A disclosing, as summarised in the proxy, that during March 23-30, 2021 it sold an aggregate of 774,546 MoneyGram shares, representing 4.15% of the common stock then outstanding (based on 77,578,455 shares outstanding as of March 8, 2021) [1].

Was MoneyGram’s ODL volume organic?

No, by the terms of the filing. MoneyGram was paid in XRP to supply a reliable level of trading activity and paid nothing to use ODL [1]. Volume produced under those terms shows what happens when a user is paid to route payments, not what a remitter picks when it bears the full cost.

The filing also says MoneyGram’s activity under the agreement included purchases and sales of XRP and consideration received in XRP [1]. A tally of XRP traded in that corridor measures turnover. It does not count distinct customer payments, and some XRP sold may have been XRP received as fees. How far total ODL figures reflect this kind of turnover is examined in how much of Ripple’s payment volume uses XRP.

Wider ODL figures carry their own gaps. CryptoSlate reported on December 20, 2025 that ODL processed more than $15 billion of cross-border payments in 2024, and cited a DAS Research estimate of about $1.3 billion for Q2 2025 [4]. Ripple has not disclosed either figure. Protos reported that Ripple announced plans to sunset its quarterly XRP reports and change how it reports its XRP holdings [5].

Did Ripple offer similar incentives to other ODL partners?

The project’s sources do not answer this. AllAboutXRP, reviewing primary sources as of September 8, 2026, lists SBI Remit, Bitso, Tranglo and Cuallix as relationships with public evidence of XRP-based payment flows, with Cuallix named by Ripple as the first institution to use xRapid and XRP [3]. None of those entries describes fees or incentives.

MoneyGram’s terms are public because MoneyGram was a listed company that disclosed them in an SEC filing [1]. The SBI Remit case is covered separately in how SBI uses XRP for Japan remittances.

What does the MoneyGram case prove, and what does it not?

It shows that a listed money transmitter ran ODL settlement for about 18 months, from June 2019 to early December 2020 [1], and that Ripple described it as moving a double-digit share of certain transactions [2]. That is evidence the routing works operationally.

It does not show unaided demand, because of the fee terms above. It also does not show current use. AllAboutXRP notes that historical evidence proves a documented use at that time, not that every current transaction still uses XRP [3]. According to AllAboutXRP, Ripple’s case study on the current Bitso relationship lists both RLUSD and XRP as settlement assets [3]. Ripple’s June 9, 2026 release on the U.S.–Mexico corridor centres on Bitso’s MXNB stablecoin issued on the XRP Ledger alongside RLUSD, and the Ripple executive quoted names RLUSD and MXNB, not XRP [6]. Ripple wrote on April 24, 2026 that its payments platform supports USDC, USDT and RLUSD across stablecoin and fiat rails [7]. The stablecoin side of this corridor is covered in the Ripple and Bitso MXNB stablecoin. Whether MoneyGram moved its settlement work to another network is outside this page’s sources; the comparison with that rival network is in whether Stellar is a real competitor to XRP.

What is the strongest case against reading MoneyGram as proof of XRP demand?

crypto.news, on July 25, 2026, set out what it called an “ungenerous reading”: that the ODL numbers and Ripple’s acquisition record point to a company spending three years and $4 billion reducing its dependence on XRP. It set that against a “generous reading” of optionality and said its audit could not settle which one holds [8]. CaptainAltcoin put the general rule plainly on September 10, 2026: being connected to Ripple does not mean using XRP [9].

The case for cost savings, the other side of this question, is on whether XRP is cheaper for cross-border payments.