Agora Selects Wormhole as Core Interoperability Solution for AUSD Stablecoin

Agora will leverage Wormhole NTT (native token transfers) to unite AUSD stablecoin liquidity across all blockchains

NEW YORK, Oct. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Agora, the Dragonfly-backed startup aimed at building an open, inclusive stablecoin network, today announced the selection of Wormhole as a core interoperability provider for their AUSD stablecoin. Currently live on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Sui with over $65M in total value locked (TVL), AUSD is a centralized, credibly neutral stablecoin expanding to all major blockchains. By leveraging Wormhole's multichain capabilities and secure infrastructure that caters to the development of institutional-grade stablecoins, the integration will unify liquidity across chains and increase AUSD access and transferability. 

Through this collaboration, Agora furthers its mission of developing an open, more inclusive model for participants in stablecoin networks. Agora manages AUSD, a digital dollar minted 1:1 with USD fiat. AUSD is designed to be a secure digital currency, utilizing one of the world's largest custodian banks to safeguard assets. With Wormhole's NTT framework Agora can cut liquidity fragmentation by preserving the intrinsic properties of tokens on different chains. Leveraging NTT not only unites the Agora ecosystem but also enhances transparency while reducing transaction fees and other costs. Additionally, NTT enables AUSD to easily expand to additional blockchains, with Solana coming in the near future.

As the provider of one of the fastest-growing stablecoins, "Agora's selection of Wormhole as an interoperability solution is driven by the knowledge that early multichain support will improve user experience and support our rapid expansion to other ecosystems. This integration reduces barriers standing in the way of accessing, transferring, and using AUSD," said Nick van Eck, CEO and co-founder.

Agora is the latest project to choose Wormhole as a core interoperability solution following the announcement of Wormhole's latest Era3 Upgrade, which introduced major user experience, speed, and cost reduction improvements to the platform. Most recently, Securitize announced a core partnership with Wormhole to add multichain functionality to their tokenized treasury bills, including BlackRock's currently $500 million BUIDL fund.

Robinson Burkey, co-founder and CCO of Wormhole Foundation, added: "Agora's mission to expand access to the US dollar is one that Wormhole Foundation is proud to support. Through Wormhole NTT, Agora customers will benefit from access to more users and liquidity across all major blockchain networks. This partnership reflects our ongoing efforts to increase institutional adoption of digital assets and improve user trust in transacting onchain."

About Agora 
Agora manages AUSD, a digital dollar minted 1:1 with USD fiat. AUSD is designed to be a secure digital currency, utilizing one of the world's largest custodian banks to safeguard assets. AUSD enables users to participate in trading, lending and payments. It is the most cost-efficient stablecoin to transact with due to its gas-optimized smart contract, making it ideal for traders and payments. Additionally, Agora offers a forward-thinking payment and operations platform.

About Wormhole
Wormhole is the leading interoperability platform that powers multichain applications and bridges at scale. Wormhole provides developers access to liquidity and users on over 30 leading blockchain networks, enabling use cases that span DeFi, NFTs, governance, and more.

The wider Wormhole network is trusted and used by teams like Circle and Uniswap. To date, the platform has facilitated the transfer of over 45 billion dollars through over 1 billion cross-chain messages.

About Wormhole Foundation
The Wormhole Foundation is the steward of Wormhole—the world's first generalized messaging protocol. Our mission is to empower passionate people in researching and developing blockchain interoperability technologies. Through grants, research, and ecosystem programs, we seek to enable teams to build secure, open-source, and decentralized products within the Wormhole ecosystem.

Media Contact
M Group Strategic Communications (On behalf of Wormhole Foundation)
[email protected]

SOURCE Wormhole Foundation