Inside the Ilya Volkov - David Marcus Meeting: Driving Lugano’s Plan ₿ Vision

Lugano’s Plan ₿ once again took center stage in promoting Bitcoin and blockchain innovation. The recent annual Plan ₿ Forum brought together over 4,000 participants, including CEOs, institutional leaders, developers, and startups from around the world to network and exchange insights on the evolving frontiers of blockchain technology.

This year's event was an upgrade from 2022 and 2024, with over 140% and 38% increases, respectively, highlighting Lugano Plan ₿'s role in advancing the adoption of digital assets and positioning it as a hub for global innovation. Additionally, the presence of many institutions is evidence that this year's event extends beyond finance, as decentralization and artificial intelligence are rapidly reshaping how people view money. 

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A key highlight was the opportunity for CEOs and institutions to interact and exchange ideas on building a sustainable system for users and businesses worldwide. David Marcus, CEO and Co-Founder of Lightspark, former President of PayPal, and VP of Messaging Products at Meta, sat down with Ilya Volkov, Co-Founder and CEO of YouHodler to discuss practical implementations of open money networks for the benefit of private individuals and corporations across the globe.

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Breaking Payment Barriers: the power of moving money on the open network

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“When David first told me about the beautiful idea of Lightspark and the idea of integrating UMAs, it was a 50/50 idea.” Ilya Volkov further added, “I knew it would either fly or die, but I had conviction the idea would fly, with Lightspark and UMA integrated on YouHodler and other platforms across the globe, providing seamless cross-border services and new exciting updates coming.”

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As a result, since March 2024, Youhodler has been leveraging Lightspark and UMA infrastructure to enable seamless, 24/7 global money transfers. UMA (Universal Money Addresses) is a technology built on Bitcoin that enables seamless transfers of fiat and cryptocurrency through human-readable addresses. With the help of the Lightning Network, UMA offers instant, low-cost, efficient and cross-border transfers, breaking the barriers of traditional finance and eliminating delays in money transfers, even on weekends. Additionally, through UMA's regulatory compliance, features such as KYC and AML are handled, allowing YouHodler to be compliant with regulatory policies while also ensuring the security of funds.

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At the recently concluded Lightspark Sync’25 Summit in Los Angeles, David invited Ilya and other partners to an annual meeting where the team shared several major announcements and product updates, including LightsparkGrid and updates to Spark - the next big steps in the development of open money protocols. 

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Youhodler and Lightspak continued discussions on the upcoming integrations during the Lugano Plan ₿ Forum, the week after Sync in LA.

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David Marcus: “[When we first met] Ilya immediately understood the power of moving money on an open network, changing the way ofglobal movement on top of bitcoin and using standard protocols. They were very early on the bandwagon, and now we have many more things to build together, given the fact that Youhodler is on the network already with all the capabilities. Looking forward to that”

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Ilya Volkov: “Businesses and individuals are still suffering from the delays in transacting after banks' cut-off time or on weekends,  closing after 5 pm on Fridays, making their services and simple money transfers a struggle. With the help of Lightspark features integrated on YouHodler, everyone can transact using Bitcoin as an underlying technology, 24/7/365 in seconds, assured of efficiency and extremely low costs.”

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As a result of the partners meeting in Los Angeles and follow-ups during the Lugano Plan ₿ Forum, Youhodler and Lightspark are committed to the integration of LightsparkGrid as an upgrade to UMA on the platform and experimenting with Spark to deliver more Web3 features to Youhodler’s users.

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More updates regarding the integrations will be published on YouHodler. Stay tuned!