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Mission

Why we are doing what we are doing?

Enable anyone to access financial freedom.
We believe enabling financial freedom requires enabling two things: freedom over finance — people should have access to a financial experience that helps put them in control — and freedom from finance — people should have access to a financial experience that helps them make the most of their time and money.

Vision

What we are aiming to do

Enable anyone to access financial freedom.
We believe enabling financial freedom requires enabling two things: freedom over finance — people should have access to a financial experience that helps put them in control — and freedom from finance — people should have access to a financial experience that helps them make the most of their time and money.

Problem

People face many problems dealing with banking. 4 billion people don’t have access to banks. For those who do have access to banks, they can’t store money at banks without worrying about it being confiscated or lost (history of centralized failures here). Banks restrict the movement of money, exploit users into obscure contracts, and monitor day to day transactions.
People can also face problems when holding all their wealth in state-controlled assets, which can be seized.
Saving and investing is so complicated that only the rich with time and money can take full advantage of it.
When users try to opt out via self-custody, they are faced with two main problems: difficult interfaces and limited functionality.

Solution

Lava focuses on building the best interface and necessary functionality for self-custody.
We are building a self-custody experience focused on serving real users, not traders. Bitcoin enables an alternative to state-controlled wealth. Assets and financial activity powered by blockchains enable an alternative to banking. People will want to experience both in self-custody.
Our solution aims to delight users on 3 metrics: functionality, safety, and simplicity.

Implications

When people self-custody, they have more transparency in who they are trusting and what someone else can do with their money. Not only does self-custody help make finance more safe, it makes it faster, more global, and more accessible.
When people have financial freedom, and thus have to worry less about finances, they have more time to enjoy the beauties of life. We can make the world more abundant in time.
Lava doesn’t require users to open a bank account and is thus more accessible. We can give access to financial functionality to the 4 billion people who are currently unbanked. Lava is building a financial experience that can support billions. We can democratize access to financial functionality.
When people actually own their own money, if they don’t like their finance provider, they can change without permission. This forces companies to provide better products as they aren’t gating customers.
The traditional fiat system is centralized. We didn’t have easy ways to place checks and balances on the fiat system until bitcoin. With bitcoin, if you don’t like what the fiat system is doing, you can buy bitcoin and opt out. This check and balance helps regulate the fiat system, giving the fiat system an incentive to better serve the people, and it gives people a way to opt out of if it doesn’t serve them well.
Capital allocation is a tool to organize labor and resources. Authoritarian regimes try to take the power of capital allocation from the people and bring it to the authoritarian. If people have financial freedom, specifically ownership over their own money, they can more easily organize, protest, and leave authoritarian regimes.

Values

Be focused on simplicity. Every thing you do, do it in a way that is as simple as it can be.
Be product-focused. Think about what we are building, who we are building it for, and why we are building with every decision. Approach by understanding users’ problems, then thinking about the best solution for them. Don’t approach by thinking of the solution first, then trying to find a problem for the solution.
Move fast. We will increase our chances of success if we make decisions faster than anyone else.
Strive for greatness. Reject mediocrity. 99 percent of startups fail. To increase our odds, we must avoid “settling”. This is particularly important when making decisions that are hard to reverse (hiring, fundraising, legal, operations, certain times in engineering). In certain cases, this might contradict moving fast, and in those cases, the best thing to do is ask yourself how difficult is this decision to reverse, and based on that answer, make your decision.

Expectations

Work hard: The problem we are solving can help billions. We won’t succeed unless we work hard and smart.
Take initiative: Take initiative in your work. Ask questions, challenge perspectives, offer new ideas, set the pace, and try to win.
Respect others: Treat everyone on the team with respect (with your time, words, and actions). Drop your ego.
Be genuine: Be genuine in everything you do - what you work on and how you act. No BS
Communicate excessively: Over-communicate. Let us know what you feel good or bad about - really everything you can do to communicate, please do.
Be curious: Challenge your views, and be open to learning new ideas.

Company Organization

Lava is divided into two product teams: the Wallet Team and the Protocol Team.
Lava’s Wallet Team aims to build the most sovereign and simple interface to finance. Lava’s Protocol Team is dedicated to enhancing the functionality of sovereign finance. Particularly, the protocol team aims to build protocols that are relevant to bitcoin.
These two teams work in tandem to complement each other. The Wallet Team serves as the primary interface for users to access the functionalities developed by the Protocol Team and provides valuable feedback on user needs. In turn, the Protocol Team supports the Wallet Team in delivering a comprehensive sovereign financial experience. This platform first approach will help us build the best products for self-custody.