Lightspark Sync 2024: Universal Money Address (UMA) Keynote

Join Shreya Vissamsetti from Lightspark as she explains the challenges of cross-border transactions for businesses and people. She’ll outline how Universal Money Address (UMA) simplifies global money movement. Here’s the UMA Keynote featuring Shreya Vissamsetti:

Transcript

Hey everyone, I'm Shreya, and I'm an engineer here at Lightspark.  I work on the Universal Money Address, or UMA for short.  Before we get started, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of you who have joined us as we continue to build out this network. It's been really great meeting some of you here this morning and hearing firsthand what's been happening in your countries. 

We have a lot of exciting content to share for the first time ever, and I'm so excited to be the one to share it with you.  Let's dive in. 

David just shared that we introduced two new capabilities for UMA. UMA Auth, which lets you connect wallets to your applications.  UMA Request, which adds new invoicing capabilities.  And Lightspark Extend, which connects UMA and Lightning to US banking rails.  I'm going to spend some time on each of these topics. 

Not everyone here in this room has integrated UMA yet.  Although I'm sure Christian and Lizzy have talked to you all about it.  For those of you who aren't as familiar, let me share some context.  For many of us here today, the state of money movement doesn't seem particularly challenging.  Think about it.

You can open up your phone and check your account balance. Or if you go out for a meal later, you can pay for it using your credit card. And even split the bill with friends using a payment app.  Moving money has become pretty seamless. So much so that we often take it for granted. 

But I think this isn't the case for many people around the world.  Can I share a quick story about myself with you all?  Some family history. I was born here in the US, but my family's journey took us to India for a few years before I returned solo for college. This is a picture of me on my first week of college, when the world was my oyster. 

I really tried to keep this photo hidden so badly, but obviously it didn't work out for me. 

During those years, my sweet parents would send me money from India using international wire transfers.  The whole process, it was just slow. It would take days at a time, because cross border.  And it wasn't cheap. They would pay a $35 fee. The whole process was just a pain.  And you know what, the worst part is, this wasn't that long ago. 

And things haven't really changed since I left college. These are very much real problems today. 

This is my story. And I realize that I'm fortunate in many ways.  My parents were able to pay the fee, we got the whole tuition situation sorted out, and it all really worked out.  But for a lot of people around the world, this isn't the case.  These are real barriers with very unfortunate consequences for some of them. 

It's 2024.  And we know that we can do better. Like everyone at Lightspark, this mission is deeply personal to me.  We believe that in today's interconnected world,  moving money should just be easy. Whether you're paying for a coffee down the street,  or sending money to a loved one back home.  And that's why we're all driven by the same shared goal, making open payments accessible for everyone. 

And if you don't get the plot already, we think that UMA is the answer.  UMA is an open protocol for moving money on the internet.  Think of it as email, but for money.  I know we've been saying this a lot, but I think we really do forget how challenging it is to move money sometimes.  Think about a bank transfer.

Even today in 2024, you sometimes physically have to go into the bank location.  Remember all of these really long numbers. Transcribe them from one app to another, and then double, if not triple check them, because you really don't want to mess it up.  I think it's really easy to get bogged down by these challenges, but we have to be very cognizant of the fact that it doesn't have to be this way. 

And maybe UMA is the solution. 

The protocol uses an intuitive addressing scheme. It's easy and simple to understand. It looks a lot like an email address, but with a dollar sign at the beginning.  We've been talking to people who are on UMA, and they love being able to just type in an address, and not having to remember all of these really long numbers. 

When we get feedback like this from the community, it makes it really clear that we're going after the right problems. 

On UMA, money exchange is global. You can send and receive any currency. It could be a fiat currency, it could be stable coins, really any form of value that you can think of. 

And we've really designed UMA with your risk, regulatory, and compliance needs in mind.  And I'm not just saying this because our legal team is here today.  The protocol supports this by allowing sending and receiving entities to exchange information about each other. 

Awesome. Now that we know what UMA is and how it works, I want to introduce you all to someone our team met the other day.  This is Reyna.  She's a Filipino nurse living in the UK.  Reyna is not living in an ideal payments world.  She works at the St. Thomas Hospital in London and sends money home to her mom in the Philippines every two weeks. 

She gets information on what provider to use for the best available fees from community Facebook groups where people just like her are sharing the information they found.  And of course, Reyna isn't the only one. We've talked to our friends at Coins.ph and learned about the thousands of men and women who are in similar situations. 

We've really designed the UMA protocol in a way that's user friendly and resembles an experience that people already get with their apps today.  They can quickly set up their wallet, type in their recipient's address, and start a payment. 

With an UMA wallet, Reyna and all of the other nurses can send money home to the Philippines, cross border, in an instant. 

We know that  UMA is so powerful, but we're not stopping here.  My team and I have been working really, hard on this, and we're so excited to announce UMA Auth for the first time ever to everyone here in this room.  UMA Auth is an extension that allows you to integrate payments directly into your application. 

Imagine a world where integrating payments is as simple as OAuth, but for money. A world where your users have full control over their financial interactions.  With UMA Auth, they can enter their UMA address and use it as a payment source for any application and to transact in any currency. 

That's the world we're creating with UMA Auth. 

Let's talk about why this is important.  In today's digital economy, businesses face so many challenges. Whether it's an e-commerce platform, a messaging app, or a content service,  payment integrations can be so complicated, taking up valuable developer time and resources.  And transaction fees often cut into businesses’ profits.

Slow settlement times leave users frustrated, and if the business is dealing with any kind of international payment, that's a whole other hassle. 

This is where UMA Auth comes in.  At its core, UMA Auth is a bridge, a very powerful connection between applications and users wallets. 

UMA Auth is built using OAuth,  the trusted security protocol that people use every day without realizing it.  Think of it as logging into an app, but instead of an identity layer, it's a payments layer. 

With UMA Auth, users can grant applications access to their wallets, but they can be so precise about it. They decide exactly what each application can see or do with their money.  And UMA Auth is built on Nostr Wallet Connect,  the open protocol that has gained significant traction in the Nostr and Lightning communities. 

Nostr Wallet Connect is really great. It allows applications to delegate the push and pull of money directly to their users’ wallets.  We've worked with a really great team at Alby and the broader community to build on top of Nostr Wallet Connect. We proposed quite a few exciting features including cross currency support and client app registration.

And we're really grateful that the team is here today. 

This fusion of OAuth and Nostr Wallet Connect results in a payment solution that's secure, user-friendly, and incredibly versatile.  Users can select exactly which applications have access to their wallet, specify a list of permitted actions, and even set a spending limit for each application. The end result is an entirely customizable payment experience, straight from your favorite application. 

Let's see how this would work for your customers.  I'm a huge foodie. My friends and I will meet up at someone's house once a month, and we always make the same type of meal.  A simple salad, a new pasta recipe, and of course, a sweet treat.  I want to introduce you all to one of my favorite food bloggers. She really has the best recipes. 

This is Izabella. She's a chef and food blogger who lives right outside of Rome, and she runs her own blog, Izzy Eats, where she shares recipes from her family, but with a modern twist.  Isabella has recently been trying to monetize her website, but she's really been struggling to find a payment solution that works well for her and her customers. 

Let's see how UMA Auth can help Isabella.  She finds a new blogging platform that integrates UMA Auth for payments.  So it's Friday night, my friends and I are deciding what we want to make for dinner. And we stumble upon this delicious looking recipe.  A pumpkin sausage pasta. It sounds so perfect and cozy for the fall.

Sign me up.  We decide we want to try out the recipe. So with one simple click, I can connect my wallet. 

I set a spending limit. Maybe $10 a month sounds reasonable.  This is really great because I can't even do this with most of my credit cards. 

Now that my wallet is all connected, I can unlock this recipe with a simple click.  And that's all. This entire flow was so seamless. I didn't have to pull out my credit card and type in all the numbers.  My UMA wallet just took care of it all.  Now I know that my friends and I, we really love Isabella's recipes, and we want more.

Maybe we need unlimited access to our content.  UMA Auth is really great for subscriptions too. 

And UMA Auth, it's not just for content monetization. There are so many use cases that will be great.  You can now make your favorite email and messaging apps transactional by integrating UMA Auth payments.

We're so excited about what we've built here and we hope that you all love it too and build some amazing experiences on top of it.  We've released SDKs that make integrating payments into your applications very simple.  And for those of you with UMA implementations already, supporting Auth requires minimal effort. 

Okay, so integrating UMA in client applications, really great.  But we've been listening to all of your feedback, and so many of you have been asking about invoicing and requesting capabilities for UMA.  We're so excited to announce UMA Request. 

As a merchant or service provider, you can now request payments from your customers by generating an invoice.  This invoice can be paid multiple times, making it incredibly flexible.  One of the really great features is that this system includes proof of payments on the back end. So you and your customers can have a really great record of the transaction. 

Let's get into another example.  Meet Kyle. Kyle is a musician right here in Venice, California.  He started doing live YouTube concerts during COVID and has amassed quite the following.  He still performs every Friday night and a lot of his fans have expressed the interest in sending him tips. But unfortunately, they don't have a lot of the same payment apps that Kyle uses. 

UMA Request was designed for this exact use case.  Kyle can set up an online tip jar, post his QR code somewhere on his YouTube channel, and his friends can send him tips in real time, regardless of what country they're in, regardless of what wallet they use or what currency.  All it takes is a really quick scan or a click. 

And the fans can pay the invoice. 

Another really great feature of UMA Request is that it supports zero amount invoices,  which means that the sender can choose the amount that they'd like to send.  It looks like a very loyal fan just sent 50 euros to Kyle.  That's a huge tip. 

The payments go straight to Kyle's account in his preferred currency, so US dollars in this case.  And there's no need for any specific payment apps. It all just works.  You're now able to integrate UMA Request, and we can't wait to see what you do with it and how your customers use it. 

And of course, UMA Request goes beyond just a tip jar.  You can request payments from friends for a shared expense. You can use it for point of sale checkouts as a merchant. Or even to send bills to your customers as a service provider. 

Next up, let's talk about Lightspark Extend. 

We're so excited to announce that Lightning and UMA are now compatible with US banking rails.  Once again, we're going to get into an example.  Meet Bernardo. Bernardo is a Brazilian dad with a son studying in the US.  Each month, he sends his son some money.  Just in case.  Just like my dad, he's supporting his child from miles and miles away. 

His son, Joao, just finished his last final exam for the semester,  and Bernardo would like to send him some money to celebrate. Maybe go out to dinner with some friends.  The banks are closed, but Joao hears about this new service, UMA.me, from his friends, and they decide to give it a shot. 

Bernardo opens up his UMA wallet and types in Joao's UMA.me address.  He enters in the amount, 500 Brazilian Riai, which should be enough to cover dinner for Joao and his friends.  The Brazilian Riai are then immediately converted to Lightning and sent to Joao's UMA.me account over the Lightning network in real time. 

And now the best part. Once Joao's UMA.me account receives the payment, it's automatically converted to US dollars and pushed straight to his bank account using RTP, or real time payments.  And Joao can use the money right away. 

This entire flow is so seamless, it took only a matter of a few seconds.  There's no waiting three to five business days, no exorbitant fees for instant transfers, No cash to handle. It's a modern, efficient, and seamless way for Bernardo to send money to his son straight to his bank account.  This story, whilst full of love, it isn’t a desperate need.

Joao would be okay without the celebratory meal.  But we realize this isn't always true. There are so many use cases, both trivial and crucial.  We're making cross border payments, and Faster and cheaper are beneficial for everyone. 

And like David mentioned, we have some really great news. We're expanding, starting with Mexico by the end of the year.  Soon, any US bank account holder will be able to send US dollars straight to a Mexican bank account in Mexican pesos in real time.  And we're also adding the ability to send from the US.to Brazil.  Now, if you know our ambitious team, we're not stopping here.  We're so excited to keep expanding Lightspark Extend globally in the coming year. 

I hope you all found this session informative.  I'll do a quick recap.  We announced UMA Auth, which makes connecting wallets to your applications very simple.  UMA Request, which adds new invoicing capabilities, and Lightpark Extend, which connects UMA and Lightning to US banking rails. 

We'll have full documentation at the roundtables later this afternoon, and you'll also have the chance to see some really cool demos that we've built.  And of course, don't forget, if you already have an UMA implementation, supporting all these new features is very simple.

I'm so inspired to be building on UMA.  I felt that it was really important to show you all real people and real use cases that will benefit from this network that we're building on.  And these are just four use cases. There are millions more out there, and we can build them together. 

The technology is here, and we just need to get it in these people's hands.  We're so excited to continue working with you all and building out this network together.  Thank you all for taking the time to listen to me and learn about everything we've been building on UMA.