From our founder, Shehzan.
Since people kept asking me to write the story behind Lava, here it is:
My parents came to America with nothing, and they worked extremely hard to earn for our family. Despite their efforts to make money, they faced another challenge in figuring out how to store that money: should the money be kept in fiat, bonds, equities, real estate, gold, bitcoin, or another asset? This wasn't just their challenge. It is a common problem faced in the immigrant community in which I grew up, and seeing the people I care about struggle with this inspired me to understand and help simplify finance.
I grew up technical, and as I made some money through my ventures, I experimented with every financial instrument I could access: real estate, stocks, options, private equity, lending. Doing so, I discovered how centralized intermediaries have made our financial obscure and unreliable and how self-custody, particularly bitcoin, helps in simplifying finance. Bitcoin makes saving easier, and digital dollars make payments easier. I wanted to use self-custodial financial experience where I could save in bitcoin and spend in dollars securely and simply, but since no solution existed, I started Lava to build my vision.
I started to flesh out the tech for the self-custody vault I wanted to use — one that would let me access the functionality I wanted securely and simply. During a late-night drive, I figured out how to build a bitcoin-secured loans protocol using DLCs on bitcoin. This was a key unlock because being about to borrow against bitcoin without giving up custody is a key primitive for a financial experience where bitcoin is a self-sovereign savings asset. Feeling confident in my ability to deliver on my vision, I set out to raise money to build Lava. Since then, I’ve assembled a highly capable team, and together, we’ve built Lava to be a better financial experience to serve you.