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

Crypto startup Agora, which raised millions in funding led by Dragonfly, has picked the cross-chain protocol Wormhole as its core interoperability provider for AUSD to expand the stablecoin across multiple blockchain networks.

In a blog announcement on Wednesday, Oct. 9, Wormhole said that AUSD, which is currently operational on Ethereum, Avalanche, and Sui, aims to expand across all other blockchain networks (e.g. Solana, Aptos, Arbitrum, Base, and BNB Chain among others).

With the partnership, Agora hopes to reduce liquidity fragmentation by leveraging Wormhole’s non-transferable token framework to preserve the intrinsic properties of tokens on different chains. The integration also aims to lower transaction costs and improve transparency as AUSD prepares for future expansion, with Solana being the next target.

Agora’s CEO and co-founder Nick van Eck praised the collaboration, saying it “reduces barriers standing in the way of accessing, transferring, and using AUSD.”

Issued by Agora, AUSD is a centralized stablecoin, backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars and managed by finance giant VanEck. The announcement comes as Wormhole continues to gain traction with institutional players following its partnership with Securitize, which expanded multichain 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 fuel its stablecoin platform launch, emphasizing regulatory compliance.

The funding round saw participation from other prominent investors, including Wintermute Ventures, Galaxy, and Consensys.