After a year of secret development, lava The company is introducing the first two of its suite of financial products, Lava Free Pay and Lava Exchange, which are poised to transform the way people handle digital dollars and access bitcoin. In conversation with Bitcoin Magazine, Lava CEO Shezhan Maredia elaborated on what these new services bring to the table and how they can redefine the mobile self-custodial experience.
Lava Free Pay: Unlocking Global Payments
The promise of the digital dollar has always been seamless, global payments. But Maredia argues that the current user experience falls short: “Imagine if every time you wanted to send money with Venmo, you first had to buy volatile VenmoBucks, pay a fee, and then pay an additional transaction fee in those same volatile VenmoBucks.”
Lava abstracts these issues and gives bitcoin users seamless access to stablecoins: “The traditional friction of dealing with other chains has been completely removed. The app doesn’t show any unnecessary details.”
Lava Free Pay is a trustless broadcast service for users that provides best-in-class stablecoin integration to any Bitcoin wallet on the market. This innovation enables free, instant, and global payments, making the digital dollar more practical and accessible for everyday use.
Maredia explains that the plan is to support multiple networks and eventually allow users to send payments to all of them. “Bitcoin-based alternatives may be considered once they have matured.” These upgrades will be smoothly integrated into Lava’s existing infrastructure, saving users from having to worry about technical details.
Lava Exchange: Your Gateway to Self-Managed Wealth Management
Navigating the world of Bitcoin and digital assets can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to finding the best exchange rates and lowest fees. Lava Exchange addresses this challenge by allowing users to directly buy and self-manage assets, and then withdraw money to their bank accounts with minimal fees.
“We thought long and hard about how we could give users a cheap and convenient way to self-manage onboarding to Lava,” Maredia said.
After exploring all market options, his team decided to build their own exchange aggregator. Using users’ location and market data, Lava can connect them to exchanges offering the best rates and lowest fees for their desired trades. These services are built directly into the Lava Vault, reducing the steps users need to take to get their bitcoin.
“We believe people should continue to save bitcoin and spend dollars, and we want to give them the best tools to make this happen. I built Lava for people who live a bitcoin-based lifestyle.”
Internally, Lava is supported by a cutting-edge self-managed solution called the Lava Smart Key, and building on a decade of mobile Bitcoin development, Maredia believes his company offers the most secure mobile key management system available today.
Lava plans to continue rolling out new products and is already ready to launch its long-awaited loan protocol using trustless Bitcoin smart contracts.
Users can get started by downloading Lava Vault from the App Store. iOS or Androidor visit Lava.
