MoneyGram has joined the Solana ecosystem as a network validator and participant in the Solana Developer Platform, expanding the payments company’s blockchain infrastructure strategy beyond stablecoins and payment services.

According to a June 22 announcement from MoneyGram, it now operates an active validator on the Solana blockchain, where it stakes SOL, processes transaction blocks, and contributes to network security and performance. The company also joined the Solana Developer Platform, a development environment designed for institutions building financial products on Solana.

The company described the move as the next stage of a blockchain strategy that has become part of its treasury, product development and payments operations over the past five years.

MoneyGram expands blockchain infrastructure role

Luke Tuttle, Chief Product and Technology Officer at MoneyGram, said operating a validator places the company directly within Solana’s consensus process and allows it to help secure the network at the protocol level.

“We help run the rails we move money on,” Tuttle said, adding that MoneyGram is also developing products intended to support money movement across different forms of value.

Sheraz Shere, General Manager of Payments and Commerce at the Solana Foundation, said MoneyGram’s participation demonstrates how organizations involved in global payments are becoming active members of blockchain networks as more payment activity moves onchain.

MoneyGram said it joined the Solana Developer Platform alongside institutions that include Mastercard. The company said the platform provides tools to build and scale compliant financial products on Solana.

Anthony Soohoo, Chairman and CEO of MoneyGram, said blockchain infrastructure has become a core component of the company’s payment systems and that future development efforts will build on that foundation.

“We believe the future of global money movement will be built on open, interoperable stablecoin rails that anyone, anywhere can access,” Soohoo said.

The company did not announce any new payment products tied to Solana but said its participation in the network forms part of a long-term effort to support open blockchain infrastructure for global money transfers.

Follows stablecoin and validator expansion

The Solana announcement comes weeks after MoneyGram launched MGUSD, its own U.S. dollar stablecoin, on the Stellar blockchain.

MoneyGram introduced the stablecoin on June 2 through a partnership with Bridge, a Stripe-owned company that serves as the issuer. M0 provides the infrastructure used to mint and burn the token, while Fireblocks supplies custody services.

MGUSD became the latest addition to a blockchain payments strategy that has expanded through partnerships with Stellar, Crossmint, Fireblocks and Kraken. MoneyGram has also introduced stablecoin-based remittance services, crypto-to-cash withdrawals and digital dollar products across multiple markets.

The company previously became an anchor remittance validator on the Tempo blockchain and was named a validator for Midnight, Cardano’s privacy-focused sidechain. Solana now becomes the third blockchain network where MoneyGram operates an official validator.

MoneyGram also worked with Ripple between 2019 and 2021, using RippleNet and XRP-based On-Demand Liquidity products before the partnership ended following the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple.

Switzerland-based Web3 development platform Enso has launched a real-world asset (RWA) application offering access to more than 500 tokenized assets through integrations with xStocks, Ondo Finance and Anchorage Digital’s Porto.

Through Enso’s execution layer, users can access tokenized stocks, ETFs, Treasurys, commodities and stablecoins. Ondo will provide tokenized equities, treasury products and capital markets infrastructure, while xStocks will enable access to tokenized equities and ETFs, according to a Monday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Available assets include major US companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla and SpaceX.

Enso said bringing these assets under a unified distribution and execution layer would simplify access to tokenized assets across multiple venues and improve the user experience.

The launch adds Enso to a growing field of European crypto firms expanding into tokenized traditional assets. Earlier this year, Austria-based Bitpanda expanded its offering to roughly 10,000 stocks and ETFs, while a number of European digital asset firms have moved to capitalize on growing demand for tokenized securities.

Enso expands access to tokenized assets. Source: Enso

Tokenized US equities have attracted significant demand from investors outside the US, particularly in Europe, Enso co-founder and CEO Connor Howe told Cointelegraph:

The demand concentrates in two places: tokenized access to US markets, with the around-the-clock trading traditional venues can’t match, and yield-bearing dollar assets.”

Tokenized asset holders rise 13% amid growing demand

The launch comes amid growing demand for tokenized assets. The number of tokenized asset holders rose 13.4% over the past 30 days to 930,612, according to data from RWA.xyz. The total value of tokenized assets, however, fell 0.9% during the same period.

Total RWA value onchain, all-time chart. Source: RWA.xyz 

US Treasury debt was the largest tokenized asset category with $15 billion in onchain value, followed by tokenized commodities at $4.6 billion and asset-backed credit at $2.2 billion. Tokenized stocks accounted for $1.6 billion in total onchain value, ranking fifth among tokenized asset categories.

Related: Franklin Templeton, BNP Paribas see tokenization boosting EU’s capital efficiency

Tokenized stocks first crossed $1 billion in total onchain value on March 10, when Ondo accounted for about 58% of the market and xStocks about 24%.

Magazine: Can Robinhood or Kraken’s tokenized stocks ever be truly decentralized?

Baillie Gifford, a 118-year-old investment firm based in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, unveiled a fixed-income tokenized fund in association with global custody giant BNY, the companies said on Monday.

Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund (BAGEY) is denominated in dollars, and gives eligible investors access to an actively managed, short-duration portfolio of public corporate bonds using the Ethereum and Solana public blockchains, according to a press release.

The fund is operated through a U.K.-regulated Open-Ended Investment Company (OEIC), a type of collective investment fund structured as a limited liability company that spreads capital from multiple investors across equities or bonds.

The fund, which currently offers a yield of around 7%, will be available to eligible investors in the U.K., Switzerland and Cayman Islands, subject to applicable laws, regulations and distribution restrictions.

Tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) has taken the traditional finance world by storm, but merely wrapping legacy infrastructure in a digital layer will not fundamentally improve finance, said Theo Golden, head of digital assets and tokenization at Baillie Gifford.

• Solana (SOL) is stuck between $72 support and $76 resistance.
• Solana’s price action shows a tight range with possible short-term rejection risk.
• $90 remains the key breakout level for a stronger bullish move.

Solana has moved back above the $74 level after a period of sideways trading, putting the asset close to a key technical zone that traders have been watching for several days.

The latest gains come after a gradual recovery from the lower $70 range, where price repeatedly found support before pushing higher.

Is this a correction within a larger bearish trend?

Recent price action shows Solana compressing inside a well-defined range between $62.08 and $76.00.

This range has become the main battleground for buyers and sellers, with repeated reactions near both ends.

On the lower side, support has been consistently observed around $69.50 and $62.08, where buying interest has prevented deeper declines.

On the upper side, resistance is clustered between $76.00 and $83.00, a zone that has rejected multiple upward attempts in recent sessions.

Some short-term technical analysis, however, suggests that the current upward move may still be part of a broader corrective phase within a larger bearish structure.

Market analysis highlights the possibility of a short squeeze toward the $76 region, followed by a rejection if bulls fail to maintain momentum above resistance.

If price is rejected from this zone, downside pressure could return quickly, with initial support at $69.50, followed by the lower boundary near $62.08.

The $76–$90 range is now the key decision area

While short-term resistance sits near $76, higher timeframe analysis places a more important threshold at the $90 level.

This zone has been highlighted as a structural breakout point that could determine whether Solana transitions into a stronger upward trend or remains in consolidation.

A move above $90 could open room toward the $100 to $114 range, which has been identified as the next liquidity zone on higher timeframes.

However, failure to break this level would likely keep price action trapped in a broader corrective environment.

At the same time, one technical interpretation suggests that the current movement is still part of a countertrend rally within a wider bearish cycle in the crypto market.

Under this scenario, upward moves into resistance zones are viewed as temporary expansions designed to capture liquidity before potential reversals.

This conflict between breakout potential and bearish continuation has created a split in analyst expectations.

The $90 level now acts as the line between the continuation of the recovery and renewed consolidation.

Morgan Stanley’s Solana ETF adds a layer of optimism

Beyond technical levels, institutional developments are also shaping sentiment around Solana.

Morgan Stanley has reportedly advanced filings for proposed spot Solana and Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs, with a proposed management fee of 0.14%, which would place them among the lowest-cost crypto ETF proposals currently under consideration.

The structure of these proposed products includes staking mechanisms, in which a large portion of staking rewards would be returned to investors after operational costs are covered.

Although these ETFs are not yet approved, the filings signal increasing institutional interest in structured Solana exposure through regulated financial instruments.

MoneyGram said Monday it has become a validator on the Solana (SOL) blockchain, the latest step in the remittance firm’s ongoing push into crypto infrastructure as it builds payment services around stablecoins.

By operating a validator, MoneyGram will help process transactions and secure Solana’s proof-of-stake network, becoming a key part of the infrastructure that keeps the network running.

The company also joined Solana Developer Platform, an initiative aimed at helping institutions build financial products on the blockchain.

The move comes weeks after MoneyGram unveiled its MGUSD stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain, a sign of the company’s growing commitment to blockchain-based payments infrastructure. After spending several years integrating crypto into remittances and settlement, MoneyGram is now taking a more active role in the networks that support those services.

“MoneyGram has spent the past several years integrating blockchain into our payment infrastructure, and everything we are building now leverages this foundation,” CEO Anthony Soohoo said in a statement. “We believe the future of global money movement will be built on open, interoperable stablecoin rails that anyone, anywhere can access.”

TLDR

• Strive acquired 759 Bitcoin for approximately $50 million between June 15 and June 21.
• The company paid an average price of $65,850 per BTC for the latest purchase.
• Strive’s total Bitcoin holdings increased to about 19,000 BTC.
• The Bitcoin treasury is valued at more than $1.2 billion at current market prices.
• The purchase price was roughly 11% lower than Strive’s May acquisition cost.

Strive expanded its Bitcoin treasury after purchasing 759 BTC for about $50 million. The company disclosed the transaction in a June 22, 2026, filing, and the purchase increased its total holdings to nearly 19,000 BTC. Those holdings now carry a value exceeding $1.2 billion based on current market prices.

Strive Adds More Bitcoin at a Lower Average Cost

The company acquired 759 BTC between June 15 and June 21, 2026. According to the filing, Strive paid an average price of $65,850 per Bitcoin. As a result, the purchase cost was approximately $50 million.

The latest acquisition came at a lower price than Strive’s previous major Bitcoin purchase. In May 2026, the company bought more than 2,500 BTC for $185.2 million. That transaction carried an average purchase price of $74,092 per coin.

The difference in acquisition prices reflects changing market conditions during the quarter. While the company paid less per coin in June, it continued increasing its Bitcoin position. Consequently, Strive maintained its ongoing treasury accumulation strategy.

Since January 2026, the company has added more than 3,700 BTC to its balance sheet. That figure includes Bitcoin obtained through the Semler Scientific acquisition. It also includes coins acquired through direct market purchases.

Bitcoin Treasury Growth Reaches 19,000 BTC

The latest purchase lifted Strive’s Bitcoin reserves to approximately 19,000 BTC. Therefore, the company remains among the largest public corporate Bitcoin holders. The treasury has grown steadily throughout 2026 through several acquisitions.

Strive has funded part of its Bitcoin strategy through SATA perpetual preferred stock. The company describes the instrument as non-dilutive because it does not require issuing common shares. This structure allows the firm to raise capital while preserving existing shareholder ownership levels.

The company recently increased the dividend rate on SATA preferred stock to 13%. Strive has continued using the instrument to support treasury expansion. At the same time, the company has avoided common equity issuance for these purchases.

Corporate Bitcoin accumulation remains a central part of Strive’s capital allocation strategy. The company has repeatedly used structured financing tools to acquire additional Bitcoin. The June filing confirmed that the latest purchase added 759 BTC to the balance sheet.

The filing also confirmed the transaction period and average acquisition price. Strive reported that it purchased the Bitcoin between June 15 and June 21. The company paid an average of $65,850 per coin during that period.

Key Takeaways

• JPMorgan boosted its WDC price target to $650 from $530, keeping an Overweight rating on improved HDD pricing trends
• Wells Fargo increased its target to $575 from $500, also maintaining an Overweight rating
• Fiscal Q3 2026 results showed 45% year-over-year revenue expansion, with sequential growth of 11%
• The company projects Q4 fiscal 2026 revenue of $3.65 billion, representing 9.4% quarter-over-quarter growth
• WDC shares have climbed 333% year-to-date, currently trading near $746.93

Western Digital (WDC) is delivering the kind of performance that turns heads across Wall Street. With shares climbing 333% year-to-date and hovering around $746.93, the storage giant has emerged as one of the most compelling beneficiaries of AI infrastructure expansion — even as Sandisk (SNDK) captures attention with its staggering 820% rally.

Western Digital Corporation, WDC

Major financial institutions are responding with upgraded expectations. On June 12, JPMorgan elevated its price target for WDC to $650 from $530, maintaining its Overweight recommendation. The investment bank cited improved earnings projections for hard disk drive manufacturers, pointing to strengthening pricing power and expanding profit margins.

According to JPMorgan, year-over-year pricing momentum across the HDD sector is expected to accelerate in upcoming quarters, with sequential price improvements staying within the low- to mid-single digit range. These incremental gains compound into significant margin expansion.

Wells Fargo followed suit, raising its price objective to $575 from $500 on June 1, while confirming its Overweight stance on the stock.

Financial Performance Validates Bullish Sentiment

The wave of analyst optimism isn’t unfounded speculation — Western Digital‘s recent financial results provide solid justification. The company delivered 45% year-over-year revenue growth during fiscal Q3 2026. Quarter-over-quarter, revenue expanded by 11%, a growth rate typically associated with companies riding major technology shifts.

Looking ahead to Q4 fiscal 2026, management has guided for $3.65 billion in revenue, implying 9.4% sequential expansion. This kind of consistent growth trajectory tends to attract long-term institutional capital.

CEO Irving Tan articulated the fundamental driver in the Q3 earnings release: “Virtually every AI workload, from training, inference, agentic AI to physical AI, creates data that is stored persistently and cost-efficiently on HDDs.”

This statement captures Western Digital’s strategic positioning. As AI applications multiply, data generation accelerates exponentially. That data requires storage infrastructure. Western Digital manufactures the high-capacity drives that provide it.

AI Infrastructure Buildout Fuels HDD Demand

Cloud hyperscalers continue deploying AI accelerators at unprecedented scale, and those computing resources generate massive data volumes requiring persistent storage. Western Digital’s enterprise HDD portfolio addresses precisely this need.

Grand View Research projects a 30.6% compound annual growth rate for the storage market through 2033. Currently, 809 data centers are in various planning and construction phases globally. Each facility will require extensive storage capacity.

Western Digital shares reached a 52-week peak of $799.87, with current levels around $746.93. The company’s market capitalization now stands at $257 billion.

Micron Technology recently achieved a $1 trillion valuation milestone, while Sandisk maintains its remarkable upward trajectory. Western Digital, with its 333% year-to-date appreciation, ranks among the top-performing stocks across the entire market this year.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is leading an OKX and New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) joint venture to build infrastructure to bridge traditional and digital financial markets.

“The ICE-OKX joint venture is a step towards building the infrastructure that will define how global markets operate in the decades ahead,” said Trabue Bland, senior vice president at ICE in a statement Monday morning.

Subject to regulatory approvals, the OKX and ICE project is expected to operate as a registered broker-dealer and a futures commission merchant, the statement noted.

The goal of the joint venture is to enable OKX’s 120 million users in the U.S. and overseas to access ICE futures and NYSE tokenized equities markets. It will also explore adjacent opportunities for the regulatory-compliant blockchain-enabled market, it added.

Cuomo, who served as New York’s 56th governor, New York State Attorney General, and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, began working with OKX in 2023.

South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has pressed for tighter global reporting standards for cryptocurrency transfers, urging a broader application of the FATF “Travel Rule” to reduce gaps in cross-border anti-money laundering (AML) controls. The push reflects concerns that current implementation leaves smaller transactions and counterparties outside meaningful compliance coverage.

During a FATF plenary session in Paris last week, the FIU proposed expanding the Travel Rule obligations to smaller crypto transfers and called for more comprehensive coverage across both originating and receiving crypto asset service providers (CASPs). The FIU also highlighted the continuing policy divergence that can enable regulatory arbitrage, while FATF approved additional work related to decentralized finance (DeFi) risk.

Key takeaways

• South Korea’s FIU urged expanding FATF Travel Rule requirements to cover smaller crypto transfers, not only large-value movements.
• The FIU recommended that Travel Rule obligations apply to both originating and receiving CASPs to reduce cross-border compliance gaps.
• FIU officials called for tougher scrutiny of offshore and unregistered crypto platforms, citing increased misuse in illicit finance cases.
• FATF approved a DeFi-focused report, while South Korea’s FIU warned that jurisdictional licensing and supervision differences continue to drive regulatory arbitrage.

Expanding the Travel Rule: from thresholds to broader coverage

The FIU’s proposal focuses on the practical operation of the FATF Travel Rule, an AML standard intended to improve traceability for crypto transfers by requiring exchanges and other CASPs to transmit relevant sender and recipient information when transfers exceed defined thresholds. According to FIU materials, the goal is to ensure that the compliance perimeter is not limited to large transactions that may be more likely to be detected under existing frameworks.

South Korea already applies Travel Rule obligations to crypto transfers above 1 million won (approximately $650). The FIU’s latest recommendation seeks to extend those requirements downward, which would likely increase the number of transfers subject to information-sharing expectations and create additional operational and compliance burdens for regulated firms.

For institutional compliance programs, this matters because threshold-based controls can create exploitable boundaries. Reducing the value cutoffs can change how monitoring systems are configured, what data fields are required, and how firms document and evidence compliance during audits and supervisory reviews.

Closing cross-border gaps: originating and receiving CASPs

Beyond lowering transaction thresholds, the FIU argued that Travel Rule requirements should cover both sides of a transfer. Specifically, it called for obligations to apply to originating and receiving CASPs, reflecting an emphasis on end-to-end information flows rather than fragmented compliance limited to only one entity in a transaction chain.

The FIU’s position is aligned with a broader policy objective: AML regimes are only as effective as the continuity of controls between jurisdictions. If receiving CASPs do not have compatible obligations—or if counterparties in different regulatory environments are not required to provide or obtain the same information—then traceability can be lost even when rules exist at the point of origin.

The FIU also tied its recommendations to the broader problem of cross-border regulatory fragmentation. It warned that differences in licensing structures, supervisory approaches, and offshore oversight can produce inconsistent enforcement outcomes—an environment in which regulatory arbitrage becomes a systemic risk rather than an edge case.

Enforcement emphasis: unregistered platforms and offshore activity

In addition to tightening data-sharing expectations, the FIU called for stronger action against offshore and unregistered crypto platforms. The FIU linked this to what it characterized as heightened misuse in illicit finance cases, as well as the risk that criminals can shift activity to venues with weaker oversight.

For regulated market participants, this direction suggests greater compliance attention not only to transaction monitoring but also to counterparty risk management. Institutional firms typically implement controls to assess whether counterparties are properly licensed or subject to effective supervision, and proposals like this can raise the expectation that those controls remain robust even when counterparties are operating abroad.

From a compliance and legal perspective, stronger action against unregistered platforms can also increase pressure on regulated entities to demonstrate due diligence regarding onboarding, ongoing monitoring, and contractual safeguards. It may affect how firms interpret “compliance reach” when interacting with cross-border service providers whose regulatory status or supervision quality is uncertain.

FATF also advances work on DeFi risk and implementation unevenness

Alongside the Travel Rule discussion, FATF approved a new report examining risks associated with decentralized finance (DeFi), according to FIU reporting. FIU Commissioner Lee Hyung Ju welcomed adoption of the DeFi-related work but emphasized that much of the regulatory arbitrage seen across jurisdictions stems from structural differences—particularly the divergence in licensing, supervision, and offshore oversight.

The Travel Rule debate also comes against the backdrop of FATF’s broader assessment of implementation. The FIU referenced FATF’s update indicating that compliance with parts of Recommendation 15 remains inconsistent globally, even years after FATF extended its AML framework to cover crypto assets and CASPs.

According to a FATF-targeted update cited by the FIU for April 2025, 49% of jurisdictions were assessed as only partially compliant with requirements for CASPs, 21% were rated non-compliant, and roughly 29% were rated largely compliant or compliant. The unevenness is significant because global standards depend on coordinated implementation to be effective in practice—especially for cross-border activity where regulated and less-regulated actors may interact.

This gap also matters for supervised entities operating in multiple markets. When compliance expectations differ across jurisdictions, firms may face higher compliance costs and greater legal uncertainty in determining which standard applies to particular counterparties and transaction pathways.

Policy context: seven years after FATF expanded the framework

The FIU’s proposals are part of ongoing discussions on implementing FATF Recommendation 15, the international standard updated in 2019 to bring AML measures to crypto assets and CASPs. Seven years on, FATF has continued to refine its understanding of how the Travel Rule should be applied operationally and what gaps remain in implementation.

For South Korea’s regulated sector, the FIU’s stance indicates a move toward closer alignment with stronger, more expansive interpretations of the Travel Rule. Since South Korea already implements Travel Rule controls for transfers above a defined threshold, expanding coverage to smaller transfers would represent an escalation in the scope of information-sharing obligations.

However, the policy question that remains open is how jurisdictions will calibrate thresholds and practical implementation requirements without creating disproportionate operational friction. Differences in data availability, transaction routing mechanics, and system interoperability can influence whether the compliance intent of the Travel Rule translates into consistent implementation at scale.

Closing perspective

With FATF’s continued work on Travel Rule implementation and DeFi risk, regulators are signaling that AML expectations for digital-asset activity will likely tighten over time—particularly around information-sharing coverage and supervision of cross-border counterparties. For compliance leaders and legal teams, the next developments to monitor include how FATF operational guidance evolves and whether South Korea and other jurisdictions move toward lower thresholds and broader CASP-to-CASP obligations.