The financial system today is filled with problems. People can’t store money at banks without worrying about it being confiscated or lost. Banks restrict the movement of money, exploit users into obscure contracts, and monitor our day to day transactions. Saving and investing is too complicated, so only the rich with time and money can take advantage of it. Most of the issues described above are a consequence of financial experiences being bank-controlled, but when users try to gain more control over their financial experience, they are faced with two main problems: difficult interfaces and limited functionality.

If we can help people self-custody their money, the implications for the world are significant:

• 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.

We believe enabling a self-custody financial experience that billions can use is critical.