FAQ
UMAs are ‘human-readable’ addresses — like email addresses — that you can use to send or receive money. UMAs are offered via wallets, exchanges, and banks. The UMA standard is a messaging standard that enables interoperability between these wallets, exchanges, and banks so that users can use their UMAs to send money to anyone with an UMA-enabled account.
With an UMA-enabled account, you can send funds to anyone else with an UMA in any currency supported by your wallet providers. UMAs are an easy solution for sending and receiving money across borders, simplifying the complicated process of money transfers for people and enabling instant, low-cost payments.
UMA is an addressing and messaging standard that uses the Bitcoin Lightning Network and Lightning Addresses for fast, efficient payments. Wallets, exchanges, and banks use UMA to enable real-time, low-cost payments for their customers. UMA enables interoperable payments between users of UMA-enabled accounts in any supported currency.
People can sign up for their UMA through any preferred wallet, exchange, or bank that supports UMA and Lightning payments. Recipients must set up their UMA and have an account at one of these service providers to send or receive money using their UMA.
Several wallets, exchanges, and banks already allow users to claim their UMAs, and more are coming soon - you can find the first set of providers on UMA.me. If UMAs are not yet available where you live, you can sign up on the site to be notified when a wallet, exchange, or bank in your country goes live.
Both, as supported by your UMA-enabled account.
The UMA standard is designed for both privacy and security. UMA communication happens over HTTPS between regulated institutions and includes additional layers of authentication and encryption to keep sensitive data safe. Wallets, exchanges, and banks sign sensitive messages using ECDSA, where the corresponding public key can be shared and verified as part of the UMA standard. Sensitive data is encrypted on top of TLS using ECIES to be stored at rest and only decrypted when needed by the regulated institutions involved in a transaction.
UMA enables near-instant transactions; in some instances, they can settle in under one second. Transaction speed will depend on the wallet, exchange, or bank a person uses.
UMA and the Lightning Network are open-source standards that any exchange, wallet, or bank can use. The UMA standard uses Lightning Addresses to provide an addressing system. It adds a secure messaging service for Lightning Network payments, while the Lightning Network enables the instant, low-cost transfer of Bitcoin for payments. The UMA standard enables interoperable payments between users of different exchanges, wallets, and banks in any currency supported by those service providers.
UMA is an addressing and messaging service that enables the exchange of information between payment service providers, including information needed for payment transactions and compliance purposes. Exchanges, wallets, and banks can integrate UMA and information received through UMA into their existing compliance programs, including blockchain analytics, money laundering, sanctions screenings, and travel rule purposes.
UMA communication happens over HTTPS with additional layers of authentication and encryption. Regulated institutions sign sensitive messages using ECDSA, where the corresponding public key can be shared and verified as part of the UMA standard. Sensitive data is encrypted on top of TLS using ECIES to be stored at rest and only decrypted when needed by the regulated institutions involved in a transaction.
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UMAs can unlock novel payment experiences, from remittances to global payouts, B2B payments, creator economy and marketplace payments, and more.
The average UMA transaction fee will vary depending on the corridor and partners performing the FX conversions. As the standard grows, costs should decrease over time.
UMA is an open payment standard that enables 24/7 interoperable payments with instant settlement at a fraction of the cost of other networks.
UMA is an open standard that relies on the Lightning network, a decentralized scaling solution on top of the Bitcoin Network. While it is unlikely that Lightning itself will experience downtime, the availability of UMA payments on Lightning will depend on the availability of service providers.
While UMA enables payments in any currency, behind-the-scenes payments will be sent and settled between wallets, exchanges, and banks in bitcoin. The Bitcoin Lightning Network enables real-time, low-cost, and interoperable payments – features not available on existing, widely used payment rails. Bitcoin is the digital asset with the best liquidity profile, security track record, network effects, and regulatory clarity — reducing risk and uncertainty in the integration decisions of regulated institutions.
“Open standard” and “open source” and publication of the UMA standard under the Apache 2.0 License means UMA can be freely adopted and used.
The UMA standard and SDKs are open source and available under the Apache 2.0 license.
UMA is a free-to-use, fully open standard with open-source SDK implementations. It is easy to set up. You can explore the documentation (docs.uma.me) and SDK GitHub repositories in Python, Go, Rust, Kotlin/Java, and Typescript/Javascript.
The standard is open to all. The standard itself is hosted on GitHub, and everyone in the world can access it, read it, and implement it. Anyone with a Lightning node and a web domain can participate. A defined process exists to submit and discuss new proposals and improvements via pull requests. This process will enable anyone to make this standard even better. The team is also available on Discord to discuss improvements. There are implementation examples and SDKs for UMA to make it easy for everyone. Those are hosted on Github; the code is available for everyone to read and audit. Improvements to the code via Github PRs are welcomed.
UMA is currently available in over 45 countries. Support will expand to more countries and regions as more wallets, exchanges, and banks adopt UMA.
Lightning Addresses are human-readable addresses that look like email addresses but can be used to send Lightning payments. Lightning addresses are built on LNURL, a protocol for communication between Lightning wallets, external applications, and third-party services. UMA uses Lightning Addresses for its addressing system. It builds additional functionality so that exchanges, wallets, and banks can securely exchange transaction and compliance information in connection with Lightning Network payments.
The UMA standard enables institutions and businesses to exchange information on Anti-Money Laundering, Combating the Financing of Terrorism, sanctions, and travel rule compliance to meet their regulatory obligations. UMA is an addressing and messaging service that enables the exchange of information between payment service providers, including information needed for payment transactions and compliance purposes. Exchanges, wallets, and banks can integrate UMA and information received through UMA into their existing compliance programs, including blockchain analytics, money laundering, sanctions screenings, and travel rule purposes. Lightspark, as an infrastructure provider for UMA, does not provide licenses.
The UMA standard supports communicating foreign exchange rates between parties in a transaction. However, Lightspark, as an infrastructure provider for UMA, does not provide actual foreign exchange services or licenses.