11 sats \ 13 replies \ @lawndough OP 3 Dec 2023 \ parent \ on: Why all the UMA hate? bitcoin
Fair point on the spec. At least they kept it open source and it’s backwards compatible with non UMA Lightning addresses.
The KYC stuff sucks for sure… it’s just the next step for bringing Lightning payments to the masses. We need to meet them where they are and the vast majority of people are still making payments in their local currencies.
My opinions is, once they start using Lightning payments, it’s just a matter of time before they make the switch to sats.
So everything you like about this is actually called Bolt-12 (yes bolt-12 has a fiat currency field as part of the spec). All that Uma adds, is kyc.
There is absolutely no excuse. There is no "helping adoption". There is only you, all your information getting leaked from corporate server hacks, and the IRS meddling in African payment transfers. How does that last one work? It doesn't. Which is why they're unbanked in the first place.
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I found some info on it I don’t understand how bolt 12 could send fiat currency if a bank can’t be connected. For businesses that want to get paid in dollars via lightning network, they need the money to come in as dollars and I feel like only a bank connected to lightning can do that for them.
Is there more you can share about it?
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Basically with bolt 12 you can ask for an invoice for $12 instead of 30k sats. You still send sats in the end, but the invoice request amount is in a different currency
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if a bank can’t be connected
The main idea of BTC and all the tech on top of it is... to fuck the banks... so, why we need to connect to them?
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I agree for the long term. I just see UMA as a way for non-bitcoin businesses to start benefiting from faster, cheaper, cross-border payments. By using Lightning as the rails, it entrenches bitcoin so when fiat currencies do eventually lose favor, it should be a seamless transition to sats.
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non-bitcoin businesses could start right now without UMA, and get faster, cheaper, cross-border payments, just use LNURL.
The business will have to do "a lot" of work anyway, UMA don't add value to them, just a bad blueprint to follow, but "they" don't touch anything. The rate, conversion and change from fiat to btc (in best case scenario) or shitcoins are in the business orbit, the business need to "compliance" to local authorities and be enabled to accept btc and change for fiat.
From my view, UMA it's just trying to size an opportunity without risk, follow my recipe (pay me) and I am clean.
I need to dig a little more into the infrastructure they are using, because seems a "private" network on top off lightning, their nodes router only kyc/compliance invoices, so if a normal node try to connect with them, it will be forbidden.
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Have you heard of strike or CashApp? They both have this thing called "pay with lightning". Fiat to btc to send, payment app with connected bank account converts btc to fiat on the receive, but Fiat is only on the ends. Either end could not use Fiat at all. Its more interoperable that way.
And that's without Bolt-12
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Ya, I have both Strike and Cashapp accounts. I had to KYC with both.
I am not an expert but it seems UMA and Strike are solving the same problem: cross border, multi-currency payments using Lightning payment rails. UMA is trying to do it in a way so any company or institution can use the protocol and create UMA addresses for their users. Whereas, with Strike, in order to do cross border transactions, the sender and receiver need a Strike account or the receiver has to be in a country where Strike has a banking partner. (I am not actually sure about this, but that’s what it seems like.)
Both Strike and UMA allow for bitcoin payments from their user accounts to other Lightning addresses so I find them equally interoperable?
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it seems UMA and Strike are solving the same problem: cross border, multi-currency payments using Lightning payment rails
Is just another paypal over LN...
Bitcoin was created EXACTLY to avoid that !
we don't need that. We just have to use Bitcoin. That's it. We are not going back to fiat.
Please read again...
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Do you think the white paper is a holy book or something?
"Please see Satoshi 2:6 on why the Central Banking is the root of all evil"
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You have a protocol and payment services tangled together and I need you to untangle them stat!
the sender and receiver need a Strike account or the receiver has to be in a country where Strike has a banking partner.
I genuinely do not comprehend why you assume that. We're just using a different protocol remember. Its almost like you've never used Bitcoin before. You can withdraw from one exchange and directly into another, you can withdraw into a wallet with full noncustodial control over the funds and then where ever including an exchange if so desired.
Okay, so now that we remember that we're using Bitcoin, Strike and CashApp say "Pay with lightning". When you hit the button, it goes into your fiat balance, buys Bitcoin and sends it off to where ever the fuck you tell it to send it off to. That could be your wallet (no fucking banking partner) that could be another payment app that's selling the Bitcoin in some other country that doesn't share the same bank because banks are not relevant to what's going on except for the Fiat side stuff.
I can not break this down any further
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Good point on protocol vs payment service- I am definitely tangling those.
Re: Strike, I’m talking about the “send globally” feature. It seems like to send a remittance to someone in one of those countries in their preferred currency, you’re relying on Strike having a banking partner in that country. I know you can send money out of your bank account to any other Lightning account. It’s just the “fiat currency -> BTC -> BTC -> different fiat currency” piece that I can’t tell the difference between UMA and Strike.
I am genuinely trying to learn, not trying to be divisive.
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Strike is a payment app, UMA is a protocol. Strike can use the protocol called lnurl (which is what UMA is based on)
So really, you need to understand the difference between lnurl and UMA first
https://thebitcoinmanual.com/articles/what-is-ln-url-and-how-does-it-work/
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