DCMA Launches Universal Monetary Unit (UMU) at IMF Spring Meetings 2023

At the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings 2023, the Digital Currency Monetary Authority (DCMA) announced the launch of Universal Monetary Unit (UMU), a new international central bank digital currency (CBDC) that is designed to strengthen the monetary sovereignty of participating central banks while complying with the crypto assets policy recommendations proposed by the IMF.

UMU, symbolized by the ANSI Character Ü, is considered a legal money commodity that can transact in any legal tender settlement currency. It functions like a CBDC and enforces banking regulations to protect the financial integrity of the international banking system.

The UMU digital currency wallet can be attached to SWIFT Codes and bank accounts, and transactions can be made using cross-border payments over digital currency rails at best-priced wholesale FX rates, with instantaneous real-time settlement. The correspondent banking system is bypassed, making cross-border payments faster, cheaper, and less risky.

In an IMF interview, Tobias Adrian, Financial Counsellor at the International Monetary Fund, said, “Imagine if a multilateral platform existed that could improve cross-border payments – at the same time transforming foreign exchange transactions, risk sharing, and more generally, financial contracting.” Darrell Hubbard, the Executive Director of the DCMA, and the chief architect of UMU, said, “This vision expressed by the IMF is the exact solution the DCMA is delivering to central banks worldwide.”

UMU can operate according to the central banking regulations of each participating jurisdiction, adopting a global localization public monetary system architecture. George Walker, a Partner at Practus, LLP, who facilitated meetings between the DCMA and the IMF, said, “Although the IMF has not officially endorsed Universal Monetary Unit, in reviewing the DCMA’s Whitepaper and in weekly team discussions, the IMF has yet to state any objections to UMU’s FX premium rates and its monetary sovereignty approach.”

According to Darrell, “UMU is not attempting to disrupt the international monetary system. If fact, it strengthens it by helping the IMF achieve its stated mandate to provide economic and financial stability to its member states. UMU is a game-changer in how cross-border payments are transacted and mitigates against seasonal and systemic local currency depreciation.”

The UMU Model Law legislation has been drafted in collaboration with several sovereign states. In this proposed legislation, UMU is not enacted as legal tender for negotiating domestic prices or international trade agreements. Instead, UMU is enacted as a complementary money commodity for the store of value, mitigating against potential seasonal and systemic local currency depreciation, and tendered as a payment currency at the time of settlement.

Merchants and trading partners can accept UMU for the equivalent market value for their good and services priced in any national legal tender. UMU has premium exchange rates built into its wallet and can convert any settlement currency amount to the equivalent UMU amount.

UMU features a trusted consensus protocol, Staked Proof of Trust (SPOT) Protocol, and a multi-dimensional DLT (mDLT) capable of supporting any asset or liability ledger, enabling full-service digital banking and international trade payments.

The DCMA introduces Universal Monetary Unit as Crypto 2.0, innovating a new wave of cryptographic technologies for realizing a digital currency public monetary system with a widespread adoption framework encompassing use cases for all constituencies in a global economy.