Dragonfly-backed Agora to use Wormhole for AUSD cross-chain expansion

Stablecoin issuer Agora has chosen Wormhole as the interoperability hub for its stablecoin AUSD.

Agora, a multimillion-fund-raising crypto startup led by Dragonfly, has chosen cross-chain protocol Wormhole as the core interoperability provider for AUSD to expand the stablecoin across multiple blockchain networks.

Currently operating on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Sui, AUSD aims to expand to all other blockchain networks (e.g. Solana, Aptos, Arbitrum, Base, and BNB Chain), Wormhole said in a blog announcement on Wednesday, October 9. others).

With the partnership, Agora hopes to reduce liquidity fragmentation by leveraging Wormhole’s non-transferable token framework to preserve the unique characteristics of tokens on different chains. The integration also aims to reduce transaction costs and increase transparency as AUSD prepares for future expansion; The next target will be Solana.

Agora CEO and co-founder Nick van Eck praised the collaboration, saying it “lowers barriers to accessing, transferring and using AUSD.”

Issued by Agora, AUSD is a centralized stablecoin backed 1:1 by the US dollar and managed by financial giant VanEck. The announcement comes as Wormhole continues to gain traction with institutional players following its partnership with Securitize, which is expanding multi-chain functionality to tokenized treasury bills.

Launched in 2024 by Nick van Eck, Drake Evans and Joe McGrady, Agora aims to build an open and inclusive stablecoin network. In April, the startup raised $12 million in funding led by Dragonfly to support its stablecoin platform launch and emphasized regulatory compliance.

Other leading investors such as Wintermute Ventures, Galaxy and Consensys also participated in the funding round.