Company Name:<\/strong> Lightspark<\/p>\n Founders:<\/strong> David Marcus, Kevin Hurley, Christina Smedley, James Everingham, Christian Catalini, Jai Massari and Tomer Barel<\/p>\n Date Founded:<\/strong> April 2022; Series A May 2022<\/p>\n Location of Headquarters:<\/strong> Los Angeles, CA<\/p>\n Amount of Bitcoin Held in Treasury:<\/strong> N\/A<\/p>\n Number of Employees:<\/strong> 45<\/p>\n Website<\/strong>: https:\/\/www.lightspark.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n Public or Private?<\/strong> Private<\/p>\n Kevin Hurley and the team at Lightspark<\/a> want to make it easier for institutions and everyday people to transfer value via bitcoin.<\/p>\n This is why they\u2019ve created Lightspark,\u00a0a\u00a0Lightning Service Provider (LSP)<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and more \u2014 that offers enterprise-grade infrastructure that enables companies around the world as well as the customers for those companies to make payments globally using the Bitcoin Lightning Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to carry on the vision that we originally had with Diem,\u201d Hurley told Bitcoin Magazine. \u201cAnd that was to really open up the financial world, make it into something where you can send money as easily as you send data packets today.\u201d<\/p>\n Hurley also shared why the team at Lightspark chose to build on Bitcoin.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the learnings from [Diem] are that you really need something that\u2019s truly decentralized, something that\u2019s a neutral protocol and something with a lot of liquidity,\u201d explained Hurley. \u201cThese are key aspects to Bitcoin and part of what makes Bitcoin so special.\u201d<\/p>\n Lightspark considers itself a more than just a\u00a0LSP\u00a0because it offers a\u00a0Software Development Kit (SDK)<\/a>, liquidity management via routing nodes, cloud based node architecture and API services that vendors can employ to build certain features or utilize certain services.<\/p>\n The Lightspark SDK lets customers very easily access the Lightning Network for payments without dealing with the headaches that normally come with using the network.<\/p>\n \u201cWe try to abstract [away] all the complexity of Lightning,\u201d explained Hurley. \u201cWe talked to a bunch of the companies that have been in the Bitcoin space for a long time and tried to understand why they weren’t using Lightning or why they had tried and given up on it, and we heard a pretty similar refrain from all of them \u2014 it was just too complex.\u201d<\/p>\n To use Lightning without an LSP, companies would normally need employees dedicated to managing and rebalancing the liquidity in their Lightning Nodes. With Lightspark, though, companies need only utilize a few lines of code provided by Lightspark to start using the Lightning Network for payments. Lightspark handles all of the technical details on the backend. Plus, Lightspark offers other features that institutions may find particularly useful.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have compliance features built on top of our stack,\u201d said Hurley about how Lightspark can help companies stay compliant with FinCEN\u2019s Travel Rule<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have AI built on top of our stack to make it so payments are extremely successful. We have Predict, which is like the Google Maps for Lightning. [It shows us] where traffic is backed up to help us route transactions more successfully. Then we start to tack on things like UMA or Universal Money Addresses, which allow you to send from any currency to any other currency,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n One of the most notable features Lightspark has architected and open-sourced is UMA.<\/p>\n Using Lightspark, companies can offer their clients a Universal Money Address, which is a cross between a Cash App $cashtag<\/a> and an email address<\/a> (e.g., $yourname@yourwallet\/bank\/exchange.com).<\/p>\n An UMA lets users send either crypto or fiat seamlessly, albeit in a custodial manner.<\/p>\n Hurley explained how UMA is built on top of and interoperable with LNURL<\/a> and Lightning Addresses<\/a>. A difference between LNURL and UMA is that UMA can be used to send fiat in its own unique way.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re able to go from any currency to another currency using UMA,\u201d shared Hurley.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s say I\u2019m coming from Brazil, and I want to send money to someone in Mexico. Maybe I\u2019m in Mexico visiting and I go to the 7-Eleven and want to buy something. I should be able to send from my native currency to Mexican pesos,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWith UMA, what happens is my Brazilian reals are converted instantaneously to sats<\/a>. They’re streamed over Lightning and convert instantly from sats to pesos and pay out to the 7-Eleven.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of the reason such transfers can happen legally is that UMA facilitates the exchange of compliance data between the different institutions with which Lightspark works, which are located around the globe.<\/p>\n The exchanges, neobanks, and other institutions that partner with Lightspark \u2014 all of which are regulated bitcoin\/crypto custodians \u2014 have the proper money transfer licenses in their respective jurisdictions, which keep Lightspark and its partners in compliance with the aforementioned Travel Rule.<\/p>\nHow does Lightspark work?<\/h2>\n
Universal Money Addresses (UMA)<\/h2>\n
Lightspark\u2019s Partner Institutions<\/h2>\n