1. Home
  2. End User Central
  3. Web client
  4. Web Client: U balance

v.7 by Alexander Myodov
2018-07-11 03:07

Web Client: U balance

As you know already (after having read the Basics and main concepts tutorial), U is an internal Universa measurement unit of energy required to execute some transaction, or to register some smart contracts/contract revisions.

The details of calculation how much Us some transaction requires, are rather complex and low-level (you can find them at Quantization article in the Software Developer Central); but most of the times you just need to top-up your U balance using either UTNP or UTN tokens.

In the Web client, you can see your U balance in the top left corner of the screen. Normally it contains something like “U balance: 450 (100000 test)”, what means you have 450 U units to use in Mainnet, and 100000 U units to use in Testnet. You may these numbers a 0 – and then you need to top-up the according balance, if you want to use the Universa network fully; some Crypto Cloud features can be also unavailable if you have 0 balance.

Topping up manually

To top-up your U balance, you click the “Gain access” menu option (when doing it for the first time); if you already ever purchased the UTN/UTNP tokens, this menu option is changed to “Reserve more U”, but its meaning stays the same.

… using UTNP

Historically, topping up the U balance using UTNP ERC20 token is the first method supported by Universa; though since the UTN tokens are available, usually it is easier and recommended to use UTN to top-up the balance.

But if you have some UTNP tokens, you still can use them to top-up the balance.

On the “Gain access / Reserve more U” page, you see a dialog where you can select a “product” which you purchase, such as “Uno Universa Pack” or “Small Universa Pack”. The payment option for them is some amount of UTNPs (later, the actual amount of UTNPs may depend on the momentary exchange price of UTNPs, so the price of a single U is around $0.01). You choose the product you want to purchase; in the “Provide address to return funds in the case of errors or refund” field, you enter your own Ethereum address (where you receive the payment in case if refund is needed); enter the promo code if you have one; and press “Purchase”.

After that, you will a new order being processed:

  • At the top of the window, the current status (“Your order is being processed”) is displayed;
  • Then, a suggestion where you should send some UTNP tokens, and until what moment, for the payment to complete (like, “*Please, send 15 UTNP to address below until Fri Jul 13 2018 03:04:27 GMT+0300 *”);
  • On the next field, you see the Ethereum address, to which you should send precisely the required amount of UTNP tokens. Also, a QR code is available, which can be used in your compatible Ethereum client.
  • Below, you see your Order ID. You should record it for further reference; it could be useful later, if you pay for your order but need to restore the purchase.
  • And then goes the Status field, displaying what is the current status of this purchase.

After you send the required amount of UTNP tokens to the requested Ethereum address, in some time (several minutes to half an hour maybe) the order will get processed; you receive the purchased “Universa pack”; and your U balance will automatically reflect the updated value.

Refunds

Normally, you should send precisely the amount of UTNPs to the mentioned address. Sending less then required, will not cause the order to complete. Sending more than required is possible (for example, when sending the UTNP tokens from some exchange, which have minimal limits of UTNPs to withdraw), but discouraged.

If you send more UTNPs than needed for the order, a refund procedure may be started.

  • To initiate the refund, please contact the support using any regular support means (Telegram groups; email; Facebook);
  • The refund will be performed to the Ethereum address you’ve entered in the “Provide address to return funds in the case of errors or refund” field;
  • You will be refunded with the amount you’ve paid, minus the price of the product you’ve purchased, minus the refund fees;
  • Refund fees are not the penalty for you for requesting the refund; but the necessary evil, to compensate the Ethereum network fees to execute the refund. They will be calculated dynamically, on case-by-case basis:
    • To estimate the refund, you should calculate the cost of the gas used to transfer the tokens. The overall refund fee is around twice the gas cost of tokens transfer (because it takes multiple transfers to execute the refund).
    • Normally, the Ethereum gas cost of token transfer is estimated in Ether (ETH); but as you are being refunded the UTNP tokens, it will be recalculated to UTNP tokens price instead. You may refer to CoinMarketCap prices for ETH and UTNP for estimation.
  • The refund procedure may take up to 30 days to execute.

Belated orders

Sometimes, you’ve paid your order successfully, but your interface doesn’t display the appropriate order in progress (for example, if you switched browsers/computers but use the same account). This is the case where your “Order ID” (hope you’ve recorded it!) will be useful.

In the form saying “If you already have paid the order but haven’t received the purchase, please enter the paid order id:”, enter your Order ID to the “Order ID” field and press Submit – and your order will be recovered; and if you’ve paid it already, you’ll receive it in its just-after payment state.

Note that if you’ve received the Universa Pack smart contract before, and started to use it already; then an attempt to receive it using this method won’t work as you expect. The smart contract may actually be delivered to you; but, as it is partially spent already, the contract you receive may be in REVOKED state, so it won’t be useful for you anyway.

… using UTN

When you use UTN, reserving some Us is even easier. It can even be performed automatically (see below); but if you want to reserve some Us for UTNs, you visit the same “Gain access / Reserve more U” page and use the “Reserve U for UTN” form. Using UTNs, you can just specify the exact amount of Us you want to receive (the exchange rates are displayed in the form); and, upon pressing the “Reserve” button, the appropriate amount of UTNs will be taken from your UTN wallet, and U balance will be incremented with the actual amount of Us received.

Topping up automatically (using UTN)

When you have non-empty UTN wallet, you can configure your Web Client even to auto-top-up your U balance.

Being logged in to the Crypto Cloud, click your “Account” menu option, and find the “U AUTO-PURCHASE OPTIONS” form.

The first field in this form lets you specify the lower bound of your balance. If your U balance becomes lower than that, it will be automatically topped-up.

… and the second field lets you specify by how much it will be topped-up.

Pressing “Save” will save this setting; and after this, you just have to keep your UTN balance non-empty, to have the U balance topped-up automatically.