From our founder, Shehzan.
My parents grew up in poverty in the slums of India. After I was born, they had the opportunity to immigrate to America in search of a better life. Here, they worked 20-hour days, nights and weekends. This process was challenging. As they labored to earn money for our family, they faced another battle they didn’t even know they were fighting: how to save the value of their hard-earned money.
In today’s financial system, saving has become needlessly complex. Inflation and money printing erode wealth, forcing everyone to become investors just to preserve their money. It’s no longer enough to focus on your work—you also have to figure out how to store the value of your savings. Meanwhile, every financial platform has turned into a casino. People are encouraged to gamble with their money, and as they do so, they inevitably lose all their earnings. Our current financial system has replaced saving with speculation, robbing people of their most valuable asset: their time.
Lava’s mission is to be the first fintech that encourages people to grow their wealth through saving, not gambling. I wasn’t originally planning to start Lava. I just wanted a way to save and spend that I could use and that I could share with my family and community. But when I looked around and saw no one was building what I needed, I decided I had to build it myself.
In a world where bitcoin defines saving, Lava is the best way for people saving in bitcoin to grow their holdings securely. Borrowing is one of the most powerful strategies to grow your bitcoin holdings because it enables you to unlock your bitcoin without having to sell. Lava’s borrowers have been unable to unlock liquidity on their bitcoin savings and fund major purchases in their lives without incurring taxable events and without losing access to their bitcoin upside. As a result, they now have more bitcoin than they would if they had sold. Lava’s users have borrowed against their bitcoin to purchase homes, cars, vacations, college tuition, life-changing surgeries, and much more.
We’ve built the best team in the industry, and we’re backed by the best investors in the world. You can learn about some of the core people behind Lava below. Thanks for being on this journey with us.