Introducing Xumm Profiles: A New Way to Share your XRPL Identity

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The rapid increase in Xumm and Xumm Pro user numbers makes it increasingly important to ensure users have a way to identify each other if they want to share their XRPL accounts with the public. The launch of Xumm Profiles meets this need and opens the path to trusted transactions.

An example of a fully-set-up public profile.

What are Xumm Profiles?

Xumm Profiles enable Xumm Pro users to positively identify themselves on the Xumm platform and share their Xumm accounts with the public by filling in their name, uploading a profile picture, and choosing a unique slug.

This information can be trusted to belong to a real person because it is matched and verified as belonging to a KYC-ed user, while their identity information remains private.

KYC stands for Know Your Customer, and it is often used in the heavily-regulated financial sector to identify and verify a client. This is done by providing a government-issued ID, and Xumm verifying the ID matches the person providing it.

The profile slug, name, and pictures can be used to find someone to send XRP or other assets.

Users can also add a human-readable address called a PayString to the profile. Displayed together with their username on their profile page turns the standard (and complex) XRPL ‘r’ address into an email-like address.

Building Trust with Xumm Profiles

Profiles bind trust to an XRPL account. The slug, name, and picture can be trusted to belong to a real person that can be contacted because they are matched and verified as belonging to a KYC’ed user (while identity information is kept private).

Xumm allows only KYC’d users to claim a profile slug to ensure that users can trust they are dealing with a real person.

This also helps prevent imposters and scammers from claiming slugs and ensures that the claimed slugs match real people.

Users can already generate a payment request in Xumm, entering an amount (fiat or XRP), and Xumm calculates the amount in the other currency type. The user then gets a payment request link to share.

Thanks to Xumm Profiles, that can now be tied to an identity.

Accounts on display with their readable email-like PayStrings.

Using PayStrings to Send and Receive XRPL assets

Using the Profiles feature, users can find you (to send you XRP or other assets) with your claimed profile slug, which also works as a PayString and a username for your profile page.

For example: https://xumm.me/kevin with the PayString being kevin$xumm.me.

PayString is a simple, web-based protocol designed to make it as easy to send someone money as it is to send them an email. With the PayString protocol, you use human-readable addresses to transmit value in the currency of your choice. The PayString protocol allows participants to reach one another through standardized addresses.

In future Xumm releases, we will add (multi-currency) payment requests & request push notifications, and many more features directly benefiting from Profiles.

How to Create a Xumm Profile

Xumm Pro subscriptions and Profiles are device-bound. This means a profile will not automatically transfer when someone gets a new phone and imports their Pro-attached account again. Contact Xumm Support for help with this.

To create a Xumm Profile, KYC’ed users can click on the Xumm Pro Beta app and fill in their email addresses. After filling in their email address, they can click on “Create Profile” to fill in the data for their profile.

Users can click on Accounts in Xumm Pro and link one or more of their accounts to make them publicly visible on the profile page. On the profile page, users can manage their profile picture, slug, etc.

Xumm Profiles Adds Trust and Customizability to the XRPL

Xumm Profiles is a great way for users to share their XRPL identity with the public and build a sense of community within the XRPL ecosystem.

Another example of a fully-set-up public profile.

With more features and improvements on the way, Xumm Pro is quickly becoming the secure, user-friendly go-to platform for transacting in XRPL assets.

The Future of Profiles and Adding a Layer of Trust

As Profiles are account-bound and link to a verifiable identity, they are the basis for future functionality to address some of the challenges self-custody faces.

In the future, Profiles will support features requiring trust, such as account backup & recovery.

Profiles will also open up cool new ways to display achievements on your profile by adding Xumm badges such as Contributor, Validator, Beta Tester, Supporter, and many more.

The functionality to specify an asset without converting it to XRP is on the roadmap. This allows requesting any non-XRP asset (tokens, e.g., EUR or USD issued by Bitstamp/Gatehub). We can then push it straight to the recipient, provided both the sender and the recipient have the relevant trustline, a Pro subscription with a profile set up.

Multi-signing will require multiple signatures to make a transaction, adding extra safety to transactions.

As the financial world draws closer to regulating public blockchains, adopting a verified public profile is a safe and secure way to increase transparency in the XRPL and stay ahead of upcoming legislation.