Following a year of stealth development, Lava is introducing the first two of its suite of financial products—Lava Free Pay and Lava Exchange—poised to transform how we handle digital dollars and access to Bitcoin. In a conversation with Bitcoin Magazine, Lava CEO Shezhan Maredia provided an in-depth look at what these new offerings bring to the table and how he hopes they can redefine the mobile self-custodial experience.

Lava Free Pay: Liberating Global Payments

The promise of digital dollars has always been seamless, global payments. However, Maredia argues the current user experience falls short. “Imagine if every time you wanted to send money on Venmo, you first had to buy volatile VenmoBucks, incurring fees, and then pay an additional transaction fee in those same volatile VenmoBucks.”

Lava abstracts those issues to provide Bitcoin users seamless access to stablecoins. “The traditional friction of having to deal with other chains has been completely removed. No unnecessary detail is exposed in the app.”

Lava Free Pay is a trustless broadcasting service for users that provides best-in-class stablecoin integration of any Bitcoin wallet in the marketplace. This innovation unlocks free, instant, and global payments, making digital dollars more practical and accessible for everyday use.

Maredia explains he plans to support multiple networks and eventually allow users to send payments across all of them. “Bitcoin-based alternatives may be considered once they mature.” These upgrades will integrate smoothly into Lava's existing infrastructure, ensuring users don't have to worry about the technical details.

Lava Exchange: Your Gateway to Self-Custody Asset Management

Navigating the world of Bitcoin and digital assets can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to finding the best exchange rates and lowest fees. Lava Exchange addresses this challenge by enabling users to buy assets directly to self-custody and withdraw money to their bank accounts with minimal fees.

“We thought long and hard about how to offer users a cheap and convenient way to onboard into Lava self-custodially,” says Maredia.

After considering every market option, his team decided to build their own exchange aggregator. Using your location and market data, Lava can connect you to the exchange that offers the best rates and lowest fees for your desired transactions. Those services are directly embedded in the Lava Vault, reducing the steps necessary for the user to acquire Bitcoin.

“We think people should continue to save Bitcoin and spend dollars and we want to give them the best tools to achieve this. I built Lava for those that live a Bitcoin-based lifestyle.”

Underneath the hood, Lava is supported by a state-of-the-art self-custody solution called the Lava Smart Key. Building on a decade of mobile Bitcoin development, Maredia believes his company offers the most secure mobile key custody system available today.

Lava plans to continue rolling out new products and is already getting ready to launch its awaited loans protocol using trustless Bitcoin smart contracts.

Users can get started by downloading the Lava Vault from the App Store on iOS or Android, or by visiting lava.xyz.

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