claude-dev-suite UMA (Universal Money Address)
UMA is Lightspark's open-spec extension to Lightning Address that supports:
- Multi-currency invoices (USD, EUR, ARS, NGN, ...).
- Sender / receiver attestation (KYC compliance).
- Travel Rule data exchange (FATF compliance).
- Currency conversion via Lightning's routing.
Format: same as Lightning Address — user@domain.com — but the
backend implements UMA on top of LNURL-pay.
Spec: https://uma.me/, repo uma-universal-money-address/protocol.
Why UMA
Lightning Address solves "human-friendly identifier", but doesn't help with:
- "I want to send 50 USD to user@bank.com" — wallet needs to know USD value mapping.
- Compliance (banks need sender info).
- Cross-currency conversion.
UMA addresses these for regulated financial institutions.
Resolution
Standard Lightning Address path:
GET https://domain.com/.well-known/lnurlp/user
But response includes UMA-specific fields:
{
"tag": "payRequest",
"currencies": [
{ "code": "USD", "decimals": 2, "minSendable": 1, "maxSendable": 100000 },
{ "code": "EUR", ... },
{ "code": "BTC", ... }
],
"compliance": {
"kycStatus": "VERIFIED",
"utxoCallback": "https://...",
...
},
...
}
Travel Rule data
For payments above thresholds:
- Sender info: name, address, account number.
- Receiver info: similar.
- Data exchanged via signed payload during invoice request.
Currency conversion
UMA-enabled receiver might accept "100 USD" → produces a BOLT11 invoice for the BTC equivalent at current rate. Exchange happens at receive time.
Multi-hop currency: sender → bank → exchange → receiver bank, all via Lightning routing.
Implementations
- Lightspark — primary, customers include Coinbase, Kraken-some jurisdictions, hodl, etc.
- UMA SDK — TypeScript / Go / Python / Kotlin reference impls.
Comparison
| Feature | Lightning Address | UMA |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-currency | no | yes |
| Sender info | none | KYC-attested |
| Compliance / Travel Rule | no | yes |
| Adoption | wide (hobbyists + services) | narrow (regulated providers) |
| Privacy | server sees | server + counterparty institution sees |
Use cases
- Cross-border remittances between regulated providers.
- Payment from a regulated wallet (e.g., Coinbase) to a UMA address.
- Compliance-required Lightning payments at exchanges.
Privacy trade-off
UMA explicitly trades user privacy for regulatory compatibility. Not intended for general-purpose Lightning use; reserved for regulated flows. Self-custodial Lightning users typically use plain Lightning Address or BOLT12.
Common confusions
- UMA != AMP. AMP = Atomic Multipath. UMA = Universal Money Address.
- UMA is server-side; it doesn't change BOLT11/BOLT12 wire format.
- UMA addresses look identical to Lightning Addresses — distinguishable
only by the
currencies/compliancefields in the LNURL-pay JSON.