About YONA

What YONA does

YONA is an open standard that helps regulated crypto providers (VASPs) coordinate before a payment moves forward. It creates a simple, reusable way for one provider to ask another whether it is willing to proceed before sensitive customer data is exchanged and before settlement begins. By standardizing that early authorization step, YONA addresses a practical gap in payments between VASPs.

A focused standard by design

YONA is intentionally narrow in scope. It standardizes the early authorization step only. It does not attempt to replace the systems and processes firms already use for Travel Rule exchange, compliance review, settlement, or custody. Instead, it provides a common way for VASPs to make an early yes-or-no decision, then continue with later steps through their existing arrangements and providers.

That focus is one of YONA’s main strengths. By concentrating on pre-disclosure authorization, YONA helps reduce uncertainty at the start of a transaction, improve coordination between firms, and work with the compliance and settlement systems VASPs already use.

Open, direct, and interoperable

YONA is designed as an open standard, not a closed network. It does not require a YONA-operated runtime service, central relay, or membership-based messaging system. Participating institutions interact directly with each other using published discovery information, service endpoints, and signed messages.

This keeps YONA neutral, supports independent implementation, and gives institutions flexibility in how they adopt each release. Across the YONA ruleset and companion materials, YONA is consistently described as open to read, implement, test, evaluate, and deploy without requiring approval, membership, contract, or a commercial relationship with YONA.

What YONA is not

YONA does not carry sensitive customer data (PII), move funds, operate settlement, define Travel Rule payloads, or make compliance decisions on behalf of participants. It does not replace local policy, customer relationships, or counterparty risk decisions. Each institution remains responsible for its own compliance, operational controls, and settlement activity.

YONA should therefore be understood as a thin interoperability layer for authorization, not as a full compliance network or approval program.

The goal

YONA’s goal is to make early authorization between VASPs simpler, clearer, and easier to use across the industry. By standardizing that step, YONA helps firms coordinate and determine whether a payment can move forward before regulated data is exchanged and before settlement begins.