In cooperation with Coinme, MoneyGram today announced their intention to accept Bitcoin transactions in more than 12,000 locations in the United States. The announcement also includes plans to expand support for Bitcoin internationally in the second half of 2021.

MoneyGram and Coinme partners

MoneyGram is a long-term global payment operator with nearly 150 million consumers in the past five years. Coinme is a licensed cryptocurrency exchange that can also operate more than 20,000 physical ATMs. The goal of the cooperation is to “bring Bitcoin to thousands of new sales points in the United States” in the short term.

The partner press release also cited the company’s intention to create “cash and non-cash flows worldwide” to “ensure access to Bitcoin.” Alex Holmes, CEO of MoneyGram, added: “The innovative partnership allows us to open up our business to a whole new customer base because we are the first to bridge Bitcoin with local fiat currencies by building a bridge with Coinme. Connected bridges, thus creating a cash-to-cash model.

Related reading| Actual adoption rate: How will Mastercard’s cryptocurrency acceptance affect the price of Bitcoin?

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MoneyGram and Coinme emphasized that the launch of a service “specially designed for customers who may be interested in Bitcoin for the first time” is crucial. In the next few weeks, these companies will begin trading at 12,000 MoneyGram locations. The full deployment is expected to be expanded in more than 20,000 locations in the United States and “will be fully operational in the next few weeks.”

Prior to this cooperation, many major financial services companies incorporated encrypted transactions into their daily operations. CashApp has added bitcoin transaction support, Venmo announced last month that they intend to support the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies, and MasterCard plans to provide support for customers’ cryptocurrency transactions later this year. In recent months, other financial technology companies such as Square and Tesla have also added Bitcoin to their balance sheets.

Coinme has also established a partnership with Coinstar, which can conduct encrypted transactions in Coinstar kiosks in more than 6,000 locations in the United States.

Accessibility to BTC has been a focal point for many companies. | Source: BTC-USD on TradingView.com

MoneyGram and cryptocurrency

This is not the first time MoneyGram has committed to consolidating its business in the broader cryptocurrency space. The company has previously established a partnership with the U.S. cryptocurrency Ripple (XRP). Although the two companies reiterated their commitment to “re-establish our relationship in the future,” the partnership between the two parties reached a mutually agreed ending in March. Shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Ripple, the partnership was terminated and Ripple filed a lawsuit for allegedly participating in an unregistered securities offering through XRP transactions. The transaction includes Ripple’s use of XRP tokens to pay transaction fees for MoneyGram in international settlement transactions.

MoneyGram is a company based in Dallas, Texas, publicly traded on the Nasdaq ($MGI).

Related reading| Despite the loss of the MoneyGram partnership, Ripple continues to move forward. Will XRP respond?

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