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After starting off as a UBS graduate and Goldman Sachs developer, Lewis Tuff was one of the first employees at fintech start-up Revolut. During his time there, Lewis pioneered the cryptocurrency feature in the online banking app and helped scale the team to 50+ members. Lewis now runs engineering at Blockchain.com, a highly successful cryptocurrency wallet with a customer base of 80m+ and counting and one of the largest fintech companies in Europe. Work in Fintech recently caught up with Lewis to find out his thoughts on where cryptocurrency and blockchain is headed in the future, as well as graduate/career advice.
“It's a hot topic, it's in the media, a lot of people are talking about it. I think that's great to kind of attract more talented individuals, from all backgrounds to kind of look at what are the opportunities in the space, and the space is growing exponentially, month on month, let alone year on year.”
After having spoken to Lewis about his experiences at UBS, Goldman Sachs, and Revolut, Lewis explained the best way for students and new graduates to get involved in crypto and blockchain. The rise of social media platforms such as Reddit, Slack, Discord, and Clubhouse offer a lot more opportunities and way for young people to get their careers started than there used to be even 10 years ago. Since most crypto and blockchain projects and open-source, you can look up the repos on GitHub, check out the inner workings of them, and even fix some of the small bugs that have been raised by the community. Blockchain.com have hired engineers this way he mentioned.
“One of the first things I will ask is like, hey, what have you read about in the last few weeks that really sparked your interest? And what was it about that project, about that feature, about the design, whatever may be that really got you excited about our space?”
Lewis stressed the importance of being actively interested in the space and showing that passion through some sort of curiosity. This could be demonstrated through reading up on the theory behind blockchain tech, getting involved in the community, or producing content which speaks about the space. People need to be advocating and raising awareness for these technologies and projects so that mainstream adoption can take place through organic growth. This would break down barriers to entry for people in more developed countries and open the door for lesser developed countries to also get involved.
“And as you mentioned, these large corporations, institutions are starting to use this as a reserve currency, which is super exciting to see. Tesla and MicroStrategy being another good example. And so, I think this is like the first step where you start to see real money coming into the space, which then allows you to drive innovation, hire more talented individuals to come in innovate.”
There are still areas of cryptocurrency to iron out, such as custodial services for holding your own crypto and being self-sovereign. But then there should be a hybrid service where the customer wants to have some funds available for trading or investing, and the other funds are safely stored in the form of a savings account. With further institutional demand and big money pouring in, that’s what Lewis believes will be the tipping point, where the space will be taken beyond just retail investors and become a widely adopted asset class.
“Regulation is a positive thing for the space. So, I think regulation is there to protect customers, especially retail customers, and I think it's a positive thing and we want to see more thoughtful process put into building out the appropriate boundaries or frameworks for the new innovative products are being built.”
Lewis explained how keeping up with the developments in the crypto space is difficult for anyone, let alone regulators and governments. Even as an individual, there is a bucket-load of information every single day, from the number of new projects being built and developed, to understanding the technology itself. Ultimately Lewis reiterated that it’s there to protect the client, customer, and drive a more stable, robust, and reliable market.
“I'm more excited than ever... no longer are you bound by boundaries of where you reside, where you were born, and where you currently live. You now have this truly global system, the internet of money, as many people refer to it, where you should be able to transact, you should be able to interact, you should be able to spend, invest, and use your funds, however you see fit in a way that is productive, efficient, and an easy to use and secure.”
From when he first read the whitepaper of Bitcoin way back when, Lewis’s perspective on the space over time has changed as the utility of the technology has advanced and started to be used more and more. With the number of new innovations that are possible off the back of blockchain technology, Lewis mentioned his excitement at how legacy systems and processes today can be improved upon immensely. Buying and selling a house, legally binding contracts on chain, and even governing supply chain management are a few that came to his mind.
Contributing through coding can lead to getting your name out there. The identity problem Lewis highlighted is important because we’ve seen many large corporations that were supposed to protect customer identities to have led to huge leaks of their databases of millions of users. Lewis hopes that this flaw can be effectively solved using blockchain technology in the near future. This identity solution may also lead to efficient use in industries such as medicine, such as exchanging medical documents and history using a public ledger.
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Matthew Cheung 0:04 Hi, this is Matt from Work in FinTech. I'm the founder of Work in FinTech. I'm also CEO of FinTech ipushpull, and also a co-founder of another company called Newsquawk. And what we want to do with these episodes is teach you all about FinTech. So today, we're delighted to introduce Lewis Tuff, who's the VP of Engineering for Blockchain.com. And interviewing him is Jag Singh, who is a physics undergrad student from the University of Leicester. So I hope you enjoy this episode. And please do follow us at workinfintech.com. Over to you, Jag.
Jagraj Singh 0:36 So yeah, obviously, the work that we like to do at Work in FinTech is obviously define FinTech, what it is for viewers out there. How would you define FinTech yourself and its importance?
Lewis Tuff 0:49 So hey, Jag, yeah, thanks for having me on. I think FinTech is about providing greater accessibility, transparency, and more innovation in the financial world. And I think using technology to achieve that is one of the key aims. And so I think over the years, you've seen kind of big institutions that have built up huge customer bases, but actually been pretty slow to move in terms of iterating on their products, and providing new, interesting ways of accessing their finances. So what you're seeing now is all these kind of challenger banks, or challenger FinTech's, that are attacking different industries, and different verticals, and saying like, hey, how can we do this differently? And use technology actually, to drive that progression.
Jagraj Singh 1:34 Okay, yeah. So obviously, your career started, if I'm not wrong at UBS in the trading division, and then obviously, you moved on to Goldman Sachs, as an analyst as well. Just in general, what sort of skills did you learn at those two institutions that have helped shape your career the most? And obviously, so far?
Lewis Tuff 1:52 Sure. Yes, I was an engineer in both of those companies, and actually did the graduate scheme at UBS before moving on to Goldman Sachs. I think like working in a fast paced environment, where you're alongside the trading desks and actually responding, being very reactive, and building the technology that are driving the markets and execution is a super exciting place to start your career. I mean, in terms of what you learn, you learn very quickly that you have to prioritise your time effectively, to actually tackle and sequence work to ensure that you're always spending your time on the most impactful items. And so I think, like, in a situation where you have millions, and in some cases, billions of dollars on the line, and huge complex trading systems, and a lot of kind of noise from inbound requests, the market moving, news events that are kind of trending or influencing that market, and you have to be very critical and assess like, hey, how am I spending my time right now? How do I make sure I'm using that time effectively? And how do I respond to each individual case and make sure that I'm on top of those tasks at hand? I think by learning that structure you learn that way of prioritising your time, and being effective in communicating that to your team, but also to your clients, in this case, the trading desk and other kind of operational staff members.
Jagraj Singh 3:15 Yeah, absolutely. That sounds great. So obviously after Goldman's you moved on to Revolut, a challenger bank, so very, very different to Goldman, UBS. What sort of prompted that change in in career direction?
Lewis Tuff 3:29 Yeah, so it's pretty lucky to have the opportunity to join a very early stage start-up environment. And I think for me, one of the key reasons and drivers behind that decision was like, thinking about, okay, right now, in a global environment in US environment, I'm working within the confines and constructs of kind of existing institution, and existing environment and existing kind of economic structures. And Revolut is the opportunity to actually innovate within that right and say, hey, actually, are the current services that we're offering consumers, in this case, really as good as they could be. Are they as transparent, are they as fair? Are they as cheap as they could be? And I'll say this, the start in inception of Revolut was the fee free travel card, we could move your effects anywhere in the world. And that really resonated with me. And so I went in as one of the first engineers to help build out the infrastructure of a system and a team around that. So I think like, for me, it's an exciting opportunity to start building your own path and going down and working on a product where you can influence the whole direction strategy and not just kind of going into one particular task, where you have teams around you to help do everything else. So you're wearing many hats and get to influence much broader aspect of the company's direction.
Matthew Cheung 4:48 And how old were you at that point, Louis, because presumably you were getting paid a decent salary working in investment in a very well known investment bank. You then made the leap to work in a small start-up. So what influenced your decision? Because obviously, there's a bit of risk involved in that. And risk is a good and a bad thing. And presumably, this is a calculated risk that has paid off dividends for you. But what was your thinking process at that point? And what kind of age were you because as you get older, taking risks is more difficult. I think in my experience, you know, when you're younger, there's not as many things tied down like a mortgage or kids and so on. Just talk through your thinking around that.
Lewis Tuff 5:34 Yeah. So I was like, mid 20s. At that time, just still pretty early in my career. And I guess for me, I was looking around thinking like, Where do I see myself in five years and 10 years? And what does that progression and path look like? And in the corporate environment, that's a well trodden path, right? You have hundreds of people, peers, and like minded individuals that have gone through that, that you can learn from, that you can follow in their footsteps. But ultimately, is a well trodden path. And it's structured. And if you are a top performer, after a couple of years you're onto the next level, and you start climbing the career ladder. And for me, I started to question like, Is there more that I could experience? Is there more that I could add in terms of my skillset and background? And is there more opportunity outside of a well defined environment, to certain kind of less structured a little bit more chaotic and ambiguous, but ultimately, somewhere where I can leave my mark, right, at a bigger scale. So I think that was the kind of driving factor is like, I can either operate under someone else's guidance and follow in the footsteps of others. Or I can dive in in the deep end and try something completely out there and new and ultimately, in my mind, I was thinking, well, I can always fall back to the well structured environment later on in life, if it doesn't work out, right? Six months, 12 months down the line, if I think, actually, the start thing hasn't worked, and it didn't really go to plan, I would have learned a hell of a lot. But there are still opportunities in these big institutions always available, right? They're looking to hire great people all the time. And I think that's always kind of a good hedge.
Jagraj Singh 7:19 Okay, so obviously, the work that you did at Revolut, which basically helped pioneer the cryptocurrency feature that you briefly touched on, in the app, got noticed by Peter Smith, who is the the CEO, obviously, and founder of Blockchain.com. Are there any key differences that you notice in the working cultures between the newer FinTech companies such as Revolut and Blockchain.com, compared to the UBS and Goldman Sachs of the world?
Lewis Tuff 7:48 Yeah, I think with any company that's been around for a long time, they have to be able to efficient and be able to scale and to be able to hire at the type of volumes that they hire, they need processes in place, they need structure in place, they need well defined teams. Right. And that works for many people. And that's a great opportunity. Like, if you want to go in and you want to learn the ropes, and you want to see kind of how a massive company operates, that's a great place to start, and especially kind of post graduation, because their schemes have been like well refined over many, many years, and many, many generations of new graduates. And so I think like going in there into a well structured environment early on is actually quite beneficial of a framework. But then for me, I think the biggest difference really, is that ultimately, you have the opportunity in a smaller environment that is less well defined, and maybe even doesn't have a very clear direction yet in terms of where you're heading or what you're building, you have a bit larger area of influence. So if you want to kind of take on bigger challenges much quicker and early on in your career, then maybe you could elsewhere. So in terms of like working environments, I think that if you gain the trust of like the early team, or the early founders or the CEO, at a smaller company, you are given much larger responsibility much quicker. Whereas I think in your environment that will take you kind of many years and many promotions cycles to get there just because that structure is in place. And there's kind of an expectation at each level. And so you can naturally go and grow. Whereas I see like the start-up experience is definitely not a straight line. And you're basically kind of like darting around and figuring out like your own path. And it may not be the most efficient always. But I think along the way, you basically get an accelerated exposure to how things can work, and then that ultimately benefits you in the long run in terms of getting a more rounded experience much quicker.
Matthew Cheung 9:54 And do you think there's a particular mindset or aptitude for people to work in that environment, because I personally, I don't think it's for everybody. Because you like exactly like you said, you could be doing, you know, taking out the bins one day and you're creating financial models another day and you're fixing your AWS server another day. And what do you see as a set of skills that are useful for a young person to have to thrive in that type of environment?
Lewis Tuff 10:25 I think that, as it applies to any function, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty, and really dive into any problem large or small. And I think those who do well and there's more chaotic ad hoc environments are ones that really seize opportunities, take accountability for problems, and then solve them through to production and realisation of that problem, right, wherever you're kind of working on operational side, execution side or engineering side. It's about taking accountability, coming up with a solution, and then delivering on that solution in a way that is adding value to the company.
Jagraj Singh 11:08 Okay, with graduates every single year, they are getting more and more interested in FinTech and cryptocurrency and blockchain, etc. Do you have any or what advice would you give to graduates who want to get involved in the blockchain/crypto space?
Lewis Tuff 11:24 Yeah, I think now is a great time. It's a hot topic, it's in the media, a lot of people are talking about it. I think that's great to kind of attract more talented individuals, from all backgrounds to to kind of look at what are the opportunities in the space, and the space is growing exponentially, month on month, let alone year on year. So there are a growing number of opportunities every single year that are opening up. Many kind of traditional, but also many kind of atypical roles that maybe don't exist elsewhere, or have been created off the back of this industry, which I think is super exciting. So in terms of like, what to look for, and how do you kind of get access to that? I think we're fortunate that we have a tonne of social media platforms now that gain a lot of traction momentum and often deliver news faster than the major outlets. So I think like joining communities online, going to Reddit, joining Slack, Discord. Now you have Clubhouse has just come around, the audio, first, social platform, and there's actually a tonne of different rooms on Clubhouse, and I'm talking about cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies, different tokens, assets and projects. So I think like leveraging all those communities getting involved. And then on the engineering side, I think if you are a developer, and you can contribute through coding, then why not actually deliver a pull request to one of the open source projects, many of the blockchain technologies and projects around them are open source, including Blockchain.com's own wallets, they're all open source. And so if you're from that background, and that's something you want to get into as an engineer, then you can go into GitHub, you can look up the repos, check out the projects, and maybe even fix a few bugs that have come up. And that kind of gets your name out there, gets you spotted, and also gets you interacting with these teams and over kind of seasoned engineers in the space. And it's actually how we hired several engineers at Blockchain.com.
Jagraj Singh 13:20 Yeah, that's pretty good. Obviously, fixing the bugs might lead to obviously collecting a few bounties for bounty programmes. Do you have any advice for students? So what three things on a CV, application, cover letter would you want to see or would you say help a graduate stand out when applying for a job?
Lewis Tuff 13:42 As it applies to crypto or just generally?
Matthew Cheung 13:45 I think even crypto Lewis, because that's where you're at. And you're just saying, before we started recording how you've been employing hundreds of extra people every time I speak to you, you're always talking about how many people you're recruiting and employing. So I think from from the perspective of how a crypto firm is approaching it with your crazy growth, but still maintaining quality of graduates, what's the thing that you look out for when people are applying, and it might not be something conventional as well, like you said, with bug fixing or putting things on an open source website, these little, these little nuggets of information are really useful for our listeners. So anything like that, which is beneficial for you as well, if you could share any of those, it'll be really useful for everyone listening.
Lewis Tuff 14:33 Yeah, look, I think for me, some of the key attributes of someone that's looking to get into the space, you have to be technically curious. So what do I mean by that? I mean that you need to have proven that you actually have an interest in this space. You can talk about some of the topics that have come up, and you'll be able to research one or two of them in detail and can use as examples of like, why you started looking at domain and what's got you excited about it. So one of the first things I will ask is like, hey, what have you read about in the last few weeks that really sparked your interest? And what was it about that project, about that feature, about the design, whatever may be that really got you excited about our space? I think that's one interesting things, technically curious and showing that curiosity through practical examples is a good first one. And the second one, the second one is like getting involved in the community, as I mentioned, like joining all these different forums, joining these social media platforms, actually contributing in that manner. And not just being a consumer of that content, but actually giving back and offering something in return. And I think a third thing is like, now or never, we actually have an opportunity to produce content, and then share it broadly. So I've seen now a lot of people coming through that have blogs and talking about a lot of different content, maybe don't walk through step by step guides, doing reviews of different products, platforms, how they work, like mobile apps versus the web. And that's super interesting. I think a lot of people are doing podcasts like this one, and are able to kind of communicate their their voice that way, and are getting some really interesting people involved in this podcast. I think like YouTube as well TikTok, all these kind of video streaming services, again, are great platforms for people to offer nuggets of information, and actually make the whole space more accessible. But ultimately, we need more people that are advocating for these technologies and advocating for these products, to actually break down a barrier to entry to most people, and show them that that this is a positive direction for the company, for the space, for the world. And the reason for that is because it means you have more transparency in your finances, it's more accessible, you can jump into a global community of different people and share funds and store value and transact on chain. And you can also access all these cool new products and features and innovations that don't exist today in a traditional market.
Matthew Cheung 16:58 On that point, where do you see crypto as payments evolving over the next, I suppose year and beyond, because everyone's kind of been waiting for the payment side of it to really take off so that you could you know, buy pay for things in the shop. And it just works. Like all of the old open banking and old school swift payments that's been around for a long time where everything works. People are not incentivized to fix it yet. And then over in this second wave of rising crypto that we've seen in the last six months or nine months, whatever it's been now, and even hitting all time highs today. That's then seen yeah, I think when I spoke to you it must have been maybe a month ago, beginning of the year, or maybe even December. And you were talking about how a lot of that rise is through institutional money coming into the space. And that's followed through now, even with Elon musk talking about, you know, putting some of his cash reserves into Bitcoin. So given that it's seen as like an investment class through a kind of a digital asset and investment class with banks and brokers in my space. I see they're all expanding into digital assets, crypto, defi, blockchain whatever name they call it. But in terms of the man on the street, how can that person start? Or when will that person start seeing it the same that they're using their debit card on contactless payments? When do you kind of see it filtering down to the man on the street?
Lewis Tuff 18:34 Yeah, I think that individuals can today start getting exposure to the earliest projects that have started to take off. And I think like as a store of value that's clearly played out. And as you mentioned, these large corporations, institutions are starting to use this as a reserve currency, which is super exciting to see. Tesla and MicroStrategy being another good example. And so I think this is like the first step where you start to see real money coming into the space, which then allows you to drive innovation, hire more talented individuals to come in innovate. And the cycle continues, right? You can push out more products, build great infrastructure, and build great user experiences. And so that, again, is like lowering the barrier to entry. And I think that in terms of like how this filters down to the average person on the street, it can play out in many different ways actually, I think like some of the best technologies, and this is not just about crypto or blockchain technologies but more generally, some of the best technologies out there are present without being in the forefront of your mind. Right. No one is thinking when they go and pay for something with contactless card, or they pay for the Apple Pay or Google Pay, about all of the transactions that are happening under the covers, all of the technology and software that's written to build that end to end, and for that to facilitate that transaction, and authorise their card, and then debit their bank account, and then settle the funds. And I think that's the beauty of some of the technology we can build and provide is like, it shouldn't be at the forefront of our minds, people shouldn't have to be worrying about how do I sign my transaction? How do I broadcast transaction over a network? Like how do I store these cryptographic keys in a secure manner, because software like our own, and others out in the market, are building platforms around that, that offer a simple user experience that allows someone to kind of manage that in an effective way, and in a secure way and transparent way. And so I think that, you're going to see a full spectrum of services. And that's kind of what we've been building here at Blockchain.com. Both noncustodial, where you hold your own private keys, and you want to be self sovereign, and manage everything yourself. There should be services for that. But then people that want a hybrid where maybe they want to have some funds available for trading or investing or for borrowing against as collateral, or for actually using to spend on these different token projects, maybe it's a game, or maybe there's some like live streaming service they want to use on chain. But the rest of your funds like your equivalent of a savings account, you may want to lock up and secure and be the custodian of right. So I think you'll see this hybrid plan as well, where some of the funds, you're willing to cut self custody. And some of them you want to custody with third party, like ourselves. And then the other end of the spectrum, there'll be people that use the crypto industry and companies and platforms in a way like they do their banks today, right, all of their cash is in a bank account. And they just interact with that custodian. And they rely on the services, the platform, the mobile apps, the web, online banking, telephone banking, whatever medium it may be, to manage all their finances. So then you're going to see a full spectrum and full suite of financial services. So I don't think there'll be one critical thing, I think it will start trickling down in many different ways. I mean ultimately, the tipping point is happening, where you're starting to still see real money come in, real demand come in. And it's not just sentiment driven alone, where you just have a lot of media speculation, driving some hype, and then ultimately, some crash later on when everyone gets a bit bored, and it drops out of the front headlines.
Jagraj Singh 22:35 Personally speaking yourself, though, obviously, from when you started working on cryptocurrency features at Revolut all the way to now being VP of Engineering at Blockchain.com. How has your personal perspective on blockchain changed over time? And how do you see it developing in the future?
Lewis Tuff 22:52 Yeah, I mean, I'm more excited than ever, I think like, the proliferation of this technology, the amount of opportunities that exist, and the way that it can impact individuals around the world globally, and really give everyone a voice and everyone an opportunity to jump into this platform is super exciting. I mean, no longer are you banged by boundaries of where you reside, where you were born, and where you currently live, you now have this truly global system, the internet of money, as many people refer to it, where you should be able to transact, you should be able to interact, you should be able to spend, invest, and use your funds, however you see fit in a way that is productive, efficient, and an easy to use and secure. And I think like, for me, the biggest, I guess, change revolution, from when I first read the white paper way back to today, and being in the space and building infrastructure, building tools, building products, that really are helping users to provide more utility in the space, the biggest change is actually just seeing the number of changes available, and the number of new innovations that are possible off the back of technology. And that's outside of just merely a store value, right, the transactional side, the economic side of using it for payments, using as a store value is exciting and interesting. But that's really just one small slice of what's possible. And I think we've, as you mentioned, distributed finance with distributed apps, building smart contracts, there's a tonne of opportunity there in everything from how you buy and sell a house and the deeds behind that can be automated and codified, and legally binding on chain to actually then the provenance of like a diamond supply chain in efficiencies. There's like a tonne of different applications that I find super interesting. And I think that the biggest kind of unsolved one, which I think is like a killer idea, if any of the graduates are up to the task is actually solving identity problems. So having distributed identity on chain where I can choose who and how much of my personal information I disclose to a third party. And I can revoke that at any time. So I'm always in control, and I manage my identity. Because as we've seen, over the years, many well established, very large corporations that were supposed to be protecting our identities have ultimately leaked massive databases of tens, hundreds of millions of users. And so that covers everything from their address to the social security numbers to their credit card details. And so for me, that's pretty worrying, and building out a platform where I can sign a transaction and prove my identity without actually having to take a copy of my passport, a copy of my driver's licence, sending utility bills, etc, etc, I think that that will save a lot of time, they'll make the whole system more efficient and crucially, it'll make it more secure and put the customer and user in control.
Jagraj Singh 25:59 But speaking about blockchain technology itself as in the cryptographic nature of it, how do you think that it can be more widely adopted in different industries? So obviously, we spoke about payments. We're speaking about finance, mainly capital markets. What about stuff like medicine, and real estate and insurance and stuff like that? How do you think that blockchain technology itself can be used for those industries? And are there any industries that you think will benefit most from such technology?
Lewis Tuff 26:30 Big question, I think that touching on some of the stuff I mentioned, where any commodity or asset today that you have some contract to exchange the ownership or value of that asset, could be defined in code, and ultimately written on chain. And I think, what does that avoid that avoid these kind of individuals having to exchange physical bits of paper, it avoids someone having to sign a piece of paper with like a witness, which is a pretty archaic method of proving your identity and proving that you are who you say you are. I think that in terms of like, operating efficiencies, you often have to pay legal teams to actually then drop these contracts to manage the contracts to do the exchange. I think all of that can be operationalized in a way, that's way more efficient. And cut aside some of the hurdles to actually getting into this industry, and ultimately, will then allow us to drive innovation. And so anything where you need to prove ownership in a secure manner, i.e cryptographically, and in a simple and transparent manner, i.e on chain on a public ledger, I think we can apply that to kind of almost any industry, I think even with in the medical field, like exchanging your medical documents, and history, again, right now, in UK the NHS, they're sending round the physical documents and a physical paper trail of everything that's ever happened to you, or every treatment you ever had, or every ailment you've ever had. And again, that could be digitised, that could be securely encrypted. And the trail and audit of that could be stamped on chain and transferred in a way that is irrefutable of who it is behind the screen. And also ensure that you know, who has access to that data most crucially, so if you are granting access to your GP, or if you're getting access to your pharmacy, whoever it may be, you'll know at every point when they asked it, who accessed it, and then why. And if you want to revoke that permission anytime you should have to do that. So I think yeah, this this technology can be applied and this framework can be applied to almost any industry. I think that blockchain is not the answer to all problems and doesn't solve all problems. And in many cases, the problem is being solved with blockchain technologies. Do we just need a more efficient distributed database? But I think there are many legitimate and practical examples of where blockchains actually can handle the value and drive a lot of efficiencies in operationalizing that company.
Jagraj Singh 29:16 Leading on from what you spoke about the identity stuff, and obviously, being a big problem in the space of a moment. How do you feel about regulation in the cryptocurrency space? Obviously, we see big tech monopolising a lot of the market sector in the technology. How do you feel about regulators coming in and essentially putting a barrier or a fence around what you can do in the cryptocurrency space?
Lewis Tuff 29:40 Well, I think generally speaking, regulation is a positive thing for the space. And we actually actively work with regulators around the world to help define and drive and build some of these frameworks. So I think regulation is there to protect customers, especially retail customers, and I think it's a positive thing and we want to see more thoughtful process put into building out the appropriate boundaries or frameworks for the new innovative products are being built, right. Because ultimately, what we're seeing is a space that's growing so fast, it's very hard for anyone to keep up, let alone regulators and government agencies, right. Like even as an individual, like there's just a vast array of information and products and different projects that are being built and developed. And so it's going to take some time. And it will take some collaboration from the key market participants to help drive that and sculpt that into something that makes sense, but ultimately is a positive thing. And it's there to protect the client, is there to protect customers, and it's there to drive a more stable, robust and reliable market.
Jagraj Singh 30:50 What areas and opportunities do you see in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space in the next three, five or 10 years?
Lewis Tuff 30:58 Sure! So without making kind of too crazy predictions over the next 10 years, I think the main thing here that we're focused on is how do you make the whole space more accessible? How do you make it more transparent? How do you make it simpler and easier to use and more secure for the average individual that maybe doesn't have a technical background or doesn't have prior experience in financial services or other FinTech applications, I think driving the technology to space and place where anyone that today can like login and stream content online, via YouTube or Netflix by their favourite service. It should be as simple as that. And I think if we look at what happened when the internet was started out, one of the biggest problems early on was the explosion of content. And everyone wanted to kind of produce and create new webpages strung together by hyperlinks. But ultimately, there wasn't kind of one trail from roughly the beginning to the end of all the pages that existed. And that's where it kind of search engines came in, Google now being the dominant one. And many of them that were built over those years. now no longer exist today. And truly, we've seen kind of the survival of the fittest in that space. And for me, and what we see Blockchain.com is that, ultimately, everyone that wants to interact with this new decentralised and distributed space and platforms around it, will need to have access to a wallet. And that wallet will act as your private key store, it will act as a password manager, it will basically protect and look after and give you access to all of your assets, whether that's financial assets, whether that's as we mentioned, your identity, whether it's contracts relating to real world tangible objects or not, I think then this will be the entry point and the springboard into this new decentralised space. And so I think it's super important that everyone gets a wallet that can access a wallet, everyone can onboard and have a localised experience. They can have on ramps and off ramps that are very familiar to them to bridge the gap between the traditional world and this new world. And I think ultimately, everyone should be able to use that as an exploratory tool to figure out and find out relevant content in the same way that uses a search engine and narrow down the scope on content that you're looking for, to consume. I think in the same way here, you will need to be able to index and search across many different disparate blockchains which offer some unique experience or some unique offering, whether it's some smart contract based game, whether it's actually looking for, as I say real tangible assets on chain, where it's actually just tracing your funds, and try and do tax reporting on them. Like there's many different opportunities and many different practical applications. But ultimately, all of them will need to be managed from one centralised place. And that's where platforms like ourselves, Blockchain.com and others, offer wallets that give you that first step and give you that access and identity that allows you to step into this world.
Matthew Cheung 34:11 Great, look forward to all those things happening! So to wrap up with the last question, so in terms of you as a person, so for anyone looking at your kind of career history, it looks like you've been very successful now you've worked to top tier investment banks; UBS, Goldman's, you were one of the first employees of Revolut, you grew out a crypto piece and function and product area there. And then you moved into Blockchain.com and now you're essentially running Engineering. And you're also involved in start-up investing and lots of other things and you play guitar as well apparently, but in terms of looking at what you've achieved so far, and I think you've also been on your various, you know, FinTech leader, you know, 40 under 40 lists and so on. So, there's a lot there which shows how successful that you've been? Can you give some advice to people listening who are starting their career? Or maybe still at university, I'm not quite sure where they want to go. But FinTech or crypto might be of interest? Could you give some advice to kind of a younger version of yourself who's starting out or to someone who is starting out? Now? I think I think you said before about taking risks, has been an important part of your career journey? How would someone who's starting out taking that same approach?
Lewis Tuff 35:48 Sure, yeah, I think the main things and the main ways I'd summarise this is like, one, you just need to work hard, right? Just work hard, persevere and put, put the time and effort in. And just choose your area of focus and niche and don't get distracted by everything else is going on. So if you really care about the crypto space, like choose a project, choose a chain, choose an asset, choose a company and just research it intently, and really kind of get a good deep understanding. So that when you jump into hopefully getting a role in one of these companies, you have a great kind of foundation to start with. So things like working hard, is ultimately the first and foremost priority. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room, but if you can outwork that person, then you're going to go a long way, and I think that no one should be held back by comparing themselves to peers. I think that you should always compare your own growth and trajectory against your own performance to date, right. And I think that's the second thing is like, a lot of people get worried about titles, by peers, by other people doing things that maybe are very impressive or are deemed to be very impressive. But I think that everyone has something unique and valuable to add and contribute. You may not find that in the first few years from graduation, don't get frustrated, just keep working hard. Go back to principle one. But ultimately, like don't get held back because of what other people think, or what other people say, I think that you need to find your own way and carve your own path. And I think it's super important to compare your own progress, your own goals and mindset, and not be kind of too influenced by other people. And I think the third thing is like find a mentor, like get out there, put yourself out in the community, do take those risks, not in terms of just career risks, but also just getting yourself out there, getting your voice heard, speaking at events, like going to conferences, or it's online or in person, hopefully one day. And being part of the ecosystem. I mean, this, as I mentioned earlier, there's so many opportunities now, to get your voice out there, whether it's through asynchronous content, like a blog, or whatever, it's pretty synchronous content with the social media platforms that allow you to interact with others, people that are kind of in disparate locations and globally distributed. I think, just take those opportunities. And if someone offers you their time, that is extremely valuable. So take that, but go into that conversation with something in mind. And I think if I'd add one more thing, actually, which I got kind of given to me as advice very early on and I've always kind of stuck with is that always just ask questions and ask for what you want. And I think you'll be often surprised at how willing people are to help you out and and guide you and mentor you. So this applies to kind of getting mentors, it applies to getting feedback, and applies just get by picking someone's brain on a particular topic or getting advice on a particular direction. I think like unless you asked the question, and put yourself out there and are a bit vulnerable, like you're not going to be able to get exposure to as many opportunities than you would have otherwise. So things like that's kind of the final thing is just like, ask the question. I mean, actually, most of my most impactful mentors, and I've tend to have a mentor to this day, have been through the process of me just reaching out cold and asking them, hey, I would love to meet up and be very explicit about what you want from them, but don't just say, hey, I want to have a coffee because I get hundreds of those every single day. And I'm sure many other people in the space do also. And many of them are sales, not even related to anything tangible or productive. But if you go into that conversation, say hey, I want to go for coffee. I'm thinking about my next career move. I'd love to focus on being an engineer or working in operations or doing trading or whatever it may be. And be explicit about what it is that you think they can bring to the table and offer you guidance on. I think a lot of people will be open to that and for me that's that's paid off dividends.
Matthew Cheung 39:57 Okay, thank you, Louis. That was spent an excellent session talking to you, lots of great advice and guidance about how to get into this as a career and also around crypto and the future of it. So thank you. And so we'll wrap up now, so this is Matt at Work in FinTech joined by Jag, who's been interviewing Lewis Tuff, VP Engineering of Blockchain.com.
After starting off as a UBS graduate and Goldman Sachs developer, Lewis Tuff was one of the first employees at fintech start-up Revolut. During his time there, Lewis pioneered the cryptocurrency feature in the online banking app and helped scale the team to 50+ members. Lewis now runs engineering at Blockchain.com, a highly successful cryptocurrency wallet with a customer base of 80m+ and counting and one of the largest fintech companies in Europe. Work in Fintech recently caught up with Lewis to find out his thoughts on where cryptocurrency and blockchain is headed in the future, as well as graduate/career advice.
“It's a hot topic, it's in the media, a lot of people are talking about it. I think that's great to kind of attract more talented individuals, from all backgrounds to kind of look at what are the opportunities in the space, and the space is growing exponentially, month on month, let alone year on year.”
After having spoken to Lewis about his experiences at UBS, Goldman Sachs, and Revolut, Lewis explained the best way for students and new graduates to get involved in crypto and blockchain. The rise of social media platforms such as Reddit, Slack, Discord, and Clubhouse offer a lot more opportunities and way for young people to get their careers started than there used to be even 10 years ago. Since most crypto and blockchain projects and open-source, you can look up the repos on GitHub, check out the inner workings of them, and even fix some of the small bugs that have been raised by the community. Blockchain.com have hired engineers this way he mentioned.
“One of the first things I will ask is like, hey, what have you read about in the last few weeks that really sparked your interest? And what was it about that project, about that feature, about the design, whatever may be that really got you excited about our space?”
Lewis stressed the importance of being actively interested in the space and showing that passion through some sort of curiosity. This could be demonstrated through reading up on the theory behind blockchain tech, getting involved in the community, or producing content which speaks about the space. People need to be advocating and raising awareness for these technologies and projects so that mainstream adoption can take place through organic growth. This would break down barriers to entry for people in more developed countries and open the door for lesser developed countries to also get involved.
“And as you mentioned, these large corporations, institutions are starting to use this as a reserve currency, which is super exciting to see. Tesla and MicroStrategy being another good example. And so, I think this is like the first step where you start to see real money coming into the space, which then allows you to drive innovation, hire more talented individuals to come in innovate.”
There are still areas of cryptocurrency to iron out, such as custodial services for holding your own crypto and being self-sovereign. But then there should be a hybrid service where the customer wants to have some funds available for trading or investing, and the other funds are safely stored in the form of a savings account. With further institutional demand and big money pouring in, that’s what Lewis believes will be the tipping point, where the space will be taken beyond just retail investors and become a widely adopted asset class.
“Regulation is a positive thing for the space. So, I think regulation is there to protect customers, especially retail customers, and I think it's a positive thing and we want to see more thoughtful process put into building out the appropriate boundaries or frameworks for the new innovative products are being built.”
Lewis explained how keeping up with the developments in the crypto space is difficult for anyone, let alone regulators and governments. Even as an individual, there is a bucket-load of information every single day, from the number of new projects being built and developed, to understanding the technology itself. Ultimately Lewis reiterated that it’s there to protect the client, customer, and drive a more stable, robust, and reliable market.
“I'm more excited than ever... no longer are you bound by boundaries of where you reside, where you were born, and where you currently live. You now have this truly global system, the internet of money, as many people refer to it, where you should be able to transact, you should be able to interact, you should be able to spend, invest, and use your funds, however you see fit in a way that is productive, efficient, and an easy to use and secure.”
From when he first read the whitepaper of Bitcoin way back when, Lewis’s perspective on the space over time has changed as the utility of the technology has advanced and started to be used more and more. With the number of new innovations that are possible off the back of blockchain technology, Lewis mentioned his excitement at how legacy systems and processes today can be improved upon immensely. Buying and selling a house, legally binding contracts on chain, and even governing supply chain management are a few that came to his mind.
Contributing through coding can lead to getting your name out there. The identity problem Lewis highlighted is important because we’ve seen many large corporations that were supposed to protect customer identities to have led to huge leaks of their databases of millions of users. Lewis hopes that this flaw can be effectively solved using blockchain technology in the near future. This identity solution may also lead to efficient use in industries such as medicine, such as exchanging medical documents and history using a public ledger.
Learn more at the Work in Fintech website and follow us at LinkedIn, Twitter, Discord, Youtube, Instagram and TikTok.
Matthew Cheung 0:04 Hi, this is Matt from Work in FinTech. I'm the founder of Work in FinTech. I'm also CEO of FinTech ipushpull, and also a co-founder of another company called Newsquawk. And what we want to do with these episodes is teach you all about FinTech. So today, we're delighted to introduce Lewis Tuff, who's the VP of Engineering for Blockchain.com. And interviewing him is Jag Singh, who is a physics undergrad student from the University of Leicester. So I hope you enjoy this episode. And please do follow us at workinfintech.com. Over to you, Jag.
Jagraj Singh 0:36 So yeah, obviously, the work that we like to do at Work in FinTech is obviously define FinTech, what it is for viewers out there. How would you define FinTech yourself and its importance?
Lewis Tuff 0:49 So hey, Jag, yeah, thanks for having me on. I think FinTech is about providing greater accessibility, transparency, and more innovation in the financial world. And I think using technology to achieve that is one of the key aims. And so I think over the years, you've seen kind of big institutions that have built up huge customer bases, but actually been pretty slow to move in terms of iterating on their products, and providing new, interesting ways of accessing their finances. So what you're seeing now is all these kind of challenger banks, or challenger FinTech's, that are attacking different industries, and different verticals, and saying like, hey, how can we do this differently? And use technology actually, to drive that progression.
Jagraj Singh 1:34 Okay, yeah. So obviously, your career started, if I'm not wrong at UBS in the trading division, and then obviously, you moved on to Goldman Sachs, as an analyst as well. Just in general, what sort of skills did you learn at those two institutions that have helped shape your career the most? And obviously, so far?
Lewis Tuff 1:52 Sure. Yes, I was an engineer in both of those companies, and actually did the graduate scheme at UBS before moving on to Goldman Sachs. I think like working in a fast paced environment, where you're alongside the trading desks and actually responding, being very reactive, and building the technology that are driving the markets and execution is a super exciting place to start your career. I mean, in terms of what you learn, you learn very quickly that you have to prioritise your time effectively, to actually tackle and sequence work to ensure that you're always spending your time on the most impactful items. And so I think, like, in a situation where you have millions, and in some cases, billions of dollars on the line, and huge complex trading systems, and a lot of kind of noise from inbound requests, the market moving, news events that are kind of trending or influencing that market, and you have to be very critical and assess like, hey, how am I spending my time right now? How do I make sure I'm using that time effectively? And how do I respond to each individual case and make sure that I'm on top of those tasks at hand? I think by learning that structure you learn that way of prioritising your time, and being effective in communicating that to your team, but also to your clients, in this case, the trading desk and other kind of operational staff members.
Jagraj Singh 3:15 Yeah, absolutely. That sounds great. So obviously after Goldman's you moved on to Revolut, a challenger bank, so very, very different to Goldman, UBS. What sort of prompted that change in in career direction?
Lewis Tuff 3:29 Yeah, so it's pretty lucky to have the opportunity to join a very early stage start-up environment. And I think for me, one of the key reasons and drivers behind that decision was like, thinking about, okay, right now, in a global environment in US environment, I'm working within the confines and constructs of kind of existing institution, and existing environment and existing kind of economic structures. And Revolut is the opportunity to actually innovate within that right and say, hey, actually, are the current services that we're offering consumers, in this case, really as good as they could be. Are they as transparent, are they as fair? Are they as cheap as they could be? And I'll say this, the start in inception of Revolut was the fee free travel card, we could move your effects anywhere in the world. And that really resonated with me. And so I went in as one of the first engineers to help build out the infrastructure of a system and a team around that. So I think like, for me, it's an exciting opportunity to start building your own path and going down and working on a product where you can influence the whole direction strategy and not just kind of going into one particular task, where you have teams around you to help do everything else. So you're wearing many hats and get to influence much broader aspect of the company's direction.
Matthew Cheung 4:48 And how old were you at that point, Louis, because presumably you were getting paid a decent salary working in investment in a very well known investment bank. You then made the leap to work in a small start-up. So what influenced your decision? Because obviously, there's a bit of risk involved in that. And risk is a good and a bad thing. And presumably, this is a calculated risk that has paid off dividends for you. But what was your thinking process at that point? And what kind of age were you because as you get older, taking risks is more difficult. I think in my experience, you know, when you're younger, there's not as many things tied down like a mortgage or kids and so on. Just talk through your thinking around that.
Lewis Tuff 5:34 Yeah. So I was like, mid 20s. At that time, just still pretty early in my career. And I guess for me, I was looking around thinking like, Where do I see myself in five years and 10 years? And what does that progression and path look like? And in the corporate environment, that's a well trodden path, right? You have hundreds of people, peers, and like minded individuals that have gone through that, that you can learn from, that you can follow in their footsteps. But ultimately, is a well trodden path. And it's structured. And if you are a top performer, after a couple of years you're onto the next level, and you start climbing the career ladder. And for me, I started to question like, Is there more that I could experience? Is there more that I could add in terms of my skillset and background? And is there more opportunity outside of a well defined environment, to certain kind of less structured a little bit more chaotic and ambiguous, but ultimately, somewhere where I can leave my mark, right, at a bigger scale. So I think that was the kind of driving factor is like, I can either operate under someone else's guidance and follow in the footsteps of others. Or I can dive in in the deep end and try something completely out there and new and ultimately, in my mind, I was thinking, well, I can always fall back to the well structured environment later on in life, if it doesn't work out, right? Six months, 12 months down the line, if I think, actually, the start thing hasn't worked, and it didn't really go to plan, I would have learned a hell of a lot. But there are still opportunities in these big institutions always available, right? They're looking to hire great people all the time. And I think that's always kind of a good hedge.
Jagraj Singh 7:19 Okay, so obviously, the work that you did at Revolut, which basically helped pioneer the cryptocurrency feature that you briefly touched on, in the app, got noticed by Peter Smith, who is the the CEO, obviously, and founder of Blockchain.com. Are there any key differences that you notice in the working cultures between the newer FinTech companies such as Revolut and Blockchain.com, compared to the UBS and Goldman Sachs of the world?
Lewis Tuff 7:48 Yeah, I think with any company that's been around for a long time, they have to be able to efficient and be able to scale and to be able to hire at the type of volumes that they hire, they need processes in place, they need structure in place, they need well defined teams. Right. And that works for many people. And that's a great opportunity. Like, if you want to go in and you want to learn the ropes, and you want to see kind of how a massive company operates, that's a great place to start, and especially kind of post graduation, because their schemes have been like well refined over many, many years, and many, many generations of new graduates. And so I think like going in there into a well structured environment early on is actually quite beneficial of a framework. But then for me, I think the biggest difference really, is that ultimately, you have the opportunity in a smaller environment that is less well defined, and maybe even doesn't have a very clear direction yet in terms of where you're heading or what you're building, you have a bit larger area of influence. So if you want to kind of take on bigger challenges much quicker and early on in your career, then maybe you could elsewhere. So in terms of like working environments, I think that if you gain the trust of like the early team, or the early founders or the CEO, at a smaller company, you are given much larger responsibility much quicker. Whereas I think in your environment that will take you kind of many years and many promotions cycles to get there just because that structure is in place. And there's kind of an expectation at each level. And so you can naturally go and grow. Whereas I see like the start-up experience is definitely not a straight line. And you're basically kind of like darting around and figuring out like your own path. And it may not be the most efficient always. But I think along the way, you basically get an accelerated exposure to how things can work, and then that ultimately benefits you in the long run in terms of getting a more rounded experience much quicker.
Matthew Cheung 9:54 And do you think there's a particular mindset or aptitude for people to work in that environment, because I personally, I don't think it's for everybody. Because you like exactly like you said, you could be doing, you know, taking out the bins one day and you're creating financial models another day and you're fixing your AWS server another day. And what do you see as a set of skills that are useful for a young person to have to thrive in that type of environment?
Lewis Tuff 10:25 I think that, as it applies to any function, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty, and really dive into any problem large or small. And I think those who do well and there's more chaotic ad hoc environments are ones that really seize opportunities, take accountability for problems, and then solve them through to production and realisation of that problem, right, wherever you're kind of working on operational side, execution side or engineering side. It's about taking accountability, coming up with a solution, and then delivering on that solution in a way that is adding value to the company.
Jagraj Singh 11:08 Okay, with graduates every single year, they are getting more and more interested in FinTech and cryptocurrency and blockchain, etc. Do you have any or what advice would you give to graduates who want to get involved in the blockchain/crypto space?
Lewis Tuff 11:24 Yeah, I think now is a great time. It's a hot topic, it's in the media, a lot of people are talking about it. I think that's great to kind of attract more talented individuals, from all backgrounds to to kind of look at what are the opportunities in the space, and the space is growing exponentially, month on month, let alone year on year. So there are a growing number of opportunities every single year that are opening up. Many kind of traditional, but also many kind of atypical roles that maybe don't exist elsewhere, or have been created off the back of this industry, which I think is super exciting. So in terms of like, what to look for, and how do you kind of get access to that? I think we're fortunate that we have a tonne of social media platforms now that gain a lot of traction momentum and often deliver news faster than the major outlets. So I think like joining communities online, going to Reddit, joining Slack, Discord. Now you have Clubhouse has just come around, the audio, first, social platform, and there's actually a tonne of different rooms on Clubhouse, and I'm talking about cryptocurrencies, blockchain technologies, different tokens, assets and projects. So I think like leveraging all those communities getting involved. And then on the engineering side, I think if you are a developer, and you can contribute through coding, then why not actually deliver a pull request to one of the open source projects, many of the blockchain technologies and projects around them are open source, including Blockchain.com's own wallets, they're all open source. And so if you're from that background, and that's something you want to get into as an engineer, then you can go into GitHub, you can look up the repos, check out the projects, and maybe even fix a few bugs that have come up. And that kind of gets your name out there, gets you spotted, and also gets you interacting with these teams and over kind of seasoned engineers in the space. And it's actually how we hired several engineers at Blockchain.com.
Jagraj Singh 13:20 Yeah, that's pretty good. Obviously, fixing the bugs might lead to obviously collecting a few bounties for bounty programmes. Do you have any advice for students? So what three things on a CV, application, cover letter would you want to see or would you say help a graduate stand out when applying for a job?
Lewis Tuff 13:42 As it applies to crypto or just generally?
Matthew Cheung 13:45 I think even crypto Lewis, because that's where you're at. And you're just saying, before we started recording how you've been employing hundreds of extra people every time I speak to you, you're always talking about how many people you're recruiting and employing. So I think from from the perspective of how a crypto firm is approaching it with your crazy growth, but still maintaining quality of graduates, what's the thing that you look out for when people are applying, and it might not be something conventional as well, like you said, with bug fixing or putting things on an open source website, these little, these little nuggets of information are really useful for our listeners. So anything like that, which is beneficial for you as well, if you could share any of those, it'll be really useful for everyone listening.
Lewis Tuff 14:33 Yeah, look, I think for me, some of the key attributes of someone that's looking to get into the space, you have to be technically curious. So what do I mean by that? I mean that you need to have proven that you actually have an interest in this space. You can talk about some of the topics that have come up, and you'll be able to research one or two of them in detail and can use as examples of like, why you started looking at domain and what's got you excited about it. So one of the first things I will ask is like, hey, what have you read about in the last few weeks that really sparked your interest? And what was it about that project, about that feature, about the design, whatever may be that really got you excited about our space? I think that's one interesting things, technically curious and showing that curiosity through practical examples is a good first one. And the second one, the second one is like getting involved in the community, as I mentioned, like joining all these different forums, joining these social media platforms, actually contributing in that manner. And not just being a consumer of that content, but actually giving back and offering something in return. And I think a third thing is like, now or never, we actually have an opportunity to produce content, and then share it broadly. So I've seen now a lot of people coming through that have blogs and talking about a lot of different content, maybe don't walk through step by step guides, doing reviews of different products, platforms, how they work, like mobile apps versus the web. And that's super interesting. I think a lot of people are doing podcasts like this one, and are able to kind of communicate their their voice that way, and are getting some really interesting people involved in this podcast. I think like YouTube as well TikTok, all these kind of video streaming services, again, are great platforms for people to offer nuggets of information, and actually make the whole space more accessible. But ultimately, we need more people that are advocating for these technologies and advocating for these products, to actually break down a barrier to entry to most people, and show them that that this is a positive direction for the company, for the space, for the world. And the reason for that is because it means you have more transparency in your finances, it's more accessible, you can jump into a global community of different people and share funds and store value and transact on chain. And you can also access all these cool new products and features and innovations that don't exist today in a traditional market.
Matthew Cheung 16:58 On that point, where do you see crypto as payments evolving over the next, I suppose year and beyond, because everyone's kind of been waiting for the payment side of it to really take off so that you could you know, buy pay for things in the shop. And it just works. Like all of the old open banking and old school swift payments that's been around for a long time where everything works. People are not incentivized to fix it yet. And then over in this second wave of rising crypto that we've seen in the last six months or nine months, whatever it's been now, and even hitting all time highs today. That's then seen yeah, I think when I spoke to you it must have been maybe a month ago, beginning of the year, or maybe even December. And you were talking about how a lot of that rise is through institutional money coming into the space. And that's followed through now, even with Elon musk talking about, you know, putting some of his cash reserves into Bitcoin. So given that it's seen as like an investment class through a kind of a digital asset and investment class with banks and brokers in my space. I see they're all expanding into digital assets, crypto, defi, blockchain whatever name they call it. But in terms of the man on the street, how can that person start? Or when will that person start seeing it the same that they're using their debit card on contactless payments? When do you kind of see it filtering down to the man on the street?
Lewis Tuff 18:34 Yeah, I think that individuals can today start getting exposure to the earliest projects that have started to take off. And I think like as a store of value that's clearly played out. And as you mentioned, these large corporations, institutions are starting to use this as a reserve currency, which is super exciting to see. Tesla and MicroStrategy being another good example. And so I think this is like the first step where you start to see real money coming into the space, which then allows you to drive innovation, hire more talented individuals to come in innovate. And the cycle continues, right? You can push out more products, build great infrastructure, and build great user experiences. And so that, again, is like lowering the barrier to entry. And I think that in terms of like how this filters down to the average person on the street, it can play out in many different ways actually, I think like some of the best technologies, and this is not just about crypto or blockchain technologies but more generally, some of the best technologies out there are present without being in the forefront of your mind. Right. No one is thinking when they go and pay for something with contactless card, or they pay for the Apple Pay or Google Pay, about all of the transactions that are happening under the covers, all of the technology and software that's written to build that end to end, and for that to facilitate that transaction, and authorise their card, and then debit their bank account, and then settle the funds. And I think that's the beauty of some of the technology we can build and provide is like, it shouldn't be at the forefront of our minds, people shouldn't have to be worrying about how do I sign my transaction? How do I broadcast transaction over a network? Like how do I store these cryptographic keys in a secure manner, because software like our own, and others out in the market, are building platforms around that, that offer a simple user experience that allows someone to kind of manage that in an effective way, and in a secure way and transparent way. And so I think that, you're going to see a full spectrum of services. And that's kind of what we've been building here at Blockchain.com. Both noncustodial, where you hold your own private keys, and you want to be self sovereign, and manage everything yourself. There should be services for that. But then people that want a hybrid where maybe they want to have some funds available for trading or investing or for borrowing against as collateral, or for actually using to spend on these different token projects, maybe it's a game, or maybe there's some like live streaming service they want to use on chain. But the rest of your funds like your equivalent of a savings account, you may want to lock up and secure and be the custodian of right. So I think you'll see this hybrid plan as well, where some of the funds, you're willing to cut self custody. And some of them you want to custody with third party, like ourselves. And then the other end of the spectrum, there'll be people that use the crypto industry and companies and platforms in a way like they do their banks today, right, all of their cash is in a bank account. And they just interact with that custodian. And they rely on the services, the platform, the mobile apps, the web, online banking, telephone banking, whatever medium it may be, to manage all their finances. So then you're going to see a full spectrum and full suite of financial services. So I don't think there'll be one critical thing, I think it will start trickling down in many different ways. I mean ultimately, the tipping point is happening, where you're starting to still see real money come in, real demand come in. And it's not just sentiment driven alone, where you just have a lot of media speculation, driving some hype, and then ultimately, some crash later on when everyone gets a bit bored, and it drops out of the front headlines.
Jagraj Singh 22:35 Personally speaking yourself, though, obviously, from when you started working on cryptocurrency features at Revolut all the way to now being VP of Engineering at Blockchain.com. How has your personal perspective on blockchain changed over time? And how do you see it developing in the future?
Lewis Tuff 22:52 Yeah, I mean, I'm more excited than ever, I think like, the proliferation of this technology, the amount of opportunities that exist, and the way that it can impact individuals around the world globally, and really give everyone a voice and everyone an opportunity to jump into this platform is super exciting. I mean, no longer are you banged by boundaries of where you reside, where you were born, and where you currently live, you now have this truly global system, the internet of money, as many people refer to it, where you should be able to transact, you should be able to interact, you should be able to spend, invest, and use your funds, however you see fit in a way that is productive, efficient, and an easy to use and secure. And I think like, for me, the biggest, I guess, change revolution, from when I first read the white paper way back to today, and being in the space and building infrastructure, building tools, building products, that really are helping users to provide more utility in the space, the biggest change is actually just seeing the number of changes available, and the number of new innovations that are possible off the back of technology. And that's outside of just merely a store value, right, the transactional side, the economic side of using it for payments, using as a store value is exciting and interesting. But that's really just one small slice of what's possible. And I think we've, as you mentioned, distributed finance with distributed apps, building smart contracts, there's a tonne of opportunity there in everything from how you buy and sell a house and the deeds behind that can be automated and codified, and legally binding on chain to actually then the provenance of like a diamond supply chain in efficiencies. There's like a tonne of different applications that I find super interesting. And I think that the biggest kind of unsolved one, which I think is like a killer idea, if any of the graduates are up to the task is actually solving identity problems. So having distributed identity on chain where I can choose who and how much of my personal information I disclose to a third party. And I can revoke that at any time. So I'm always in control, and I manage my identity. Because as we've seen, over the years, many well established, very large corporations that were supposed to be protecting our identities have ultimately leaked massive databases of tens, hundreds of millions of users. And so that covers everything from their address to the social security numbers to their credit card details. And so for me, that's pretty worrying, and building out a platform where I can sign a transaction and prove my identity without actually having to take a copy of my passport, a copy of my driver's licence, sending utility bills, etc, etc, I think that that will save a lot of time, they'll make the whole system more efficient and crucially, it'll make it more secure and put the customer and user in control.
Jagraj Singh 25:59 But speaking about blockchain technology itself as in the cryptographic nature of it, how do you think that it can be more widely adopted in different industries? So obviously, we spoke about payments. We're speaking about finance, mainly capital markets. What about stuff like medicine, and real estate and insurance and stuff like that? How do you think that blockchain technology itself can be used for those industries? And are there any industries that you think will benefit most from such technology?
Lewis Tuff 26:30 Big question, I think that touching on some of the stuff I mentioned, where any commodity or asset today that you have some contract to exchange the ownership or value of that asset, could be defined in code, and ultimately written on chain. And I think, what does that avoid that avoid these kind of individuals having to exchange physical bits of paper, it avoids someone having to sign a piece of paper with like a witness, which is a pretty archaic method of proving your identity and proving that you are who you say you are. I think that in terms of like, operating efficiencies, you often have to pay legal teams to actually then drop these contracts to manage the contracts to do the exchange. I think all of that can be operationalized in a way, that's way more efficient. And cut aside some of the hurdles to actually getting into this industry, and ultimately, will then allow us to drive innovation. And so anything where you need to prove ownership in a secure manner, i.e cryptographically, and in a simple and transparent manner, i.e on chain on a public ledger, I think we can apply that to kind of almost any industry, I think even with in the medical field, like exchanging your medical documents, and history, again, right now, in UK the NHS, they're sending round the physical documents and a physical paper trail of everything that's ever happened to you, or every treatment you ever had, or every ailment you've ever had. And again, that could be digitised, that could be securely encrypted. And the trail and audit of that could be stamped on chain and transferred in a way that is irrefutable of who it is behind the screen. And also ensure that you know, who has access to that data most crucially, so if you are granting access to your GP, or if you're getting access to your pharmacy, whoever it may be, you'll know at every point when they asked it, who accessed it, and then why. And if you want to revoke that permission anytime you should have to do that. So I think yeah, this this technology can be applied and this framework can be applied to almost any industry. I think that blockchain is not the answer to all problems and doesn't solve all problems. And in many cases, the problem is being solved with blockchain technologies. Do we just need a more efficient distributed database? But I think there are many legitimate and practical examples of where blockchains actually can handle the value and drive a lot of efficiencies in operationalizing that company.
Jagraj Singh 29:16 Leading on from what you spoke about the identity stuff, and obviously, being a big problem in the space of a moment. How do you feel about regulation in the cryptocurrency space? Obviously, we see big tech monopolising a lot of the market sector in the technology. How do you feel about regulators coming in and essentially putting a barrier or a fence around what you can do in the cryptocurrency space?
Lewis Tuff 29:40 Well, I think generally speaking, regulation is a positive thing for the space. And we actually actively work with regulators around the world to help define and drive and build some of these frameworks. So I think regulation is there to protect customers, especially retail customers, and I think it's a positive thing and we want to see more thoughtful process put into building out the appropriate boundaries or frameworks for the new innovative products are being built, right. Because ultimately, what we're seeing is a space that's growing so fast, it's very hard for anyone to keep up, let alone regulators and government agencies, right. Like even as an individual, like there's just a vast array of information and products and different projects that are being built and developed. And so it's going to take some time. And it will take some collaboration from the key market participants to help drive that and sculpt that into something that makes sense, but ultimately is a positive thing. And it's there to protect the client, is there to protect customers, and it's there to drive a more stable, robust and reliable market.
Jagraj Singh 30:50 What areas and opportunities do you see in the cryptocurrency/blockchain space in the next three, five or 10 years?
Lewis Tuff 30:58 Sure! So without making kind of too crazy predictions over the next 10 years, I think the main thing here that we're focused on is how do you make the whole space more accessible? How do you make it more transparent? How do you make it simpler and easier to use and more secure for the average individual that maybe doesn't have a technical background or doesn't have prior experience in financial services or other FinTech applications, I think driving the technology to space and place where anyone that today can like login and stream content online, via YouTube or Netflix by their favourite service. It should be as simple as that. And I think if we look at what happened when the internet was started out, one of the biggest problems early on was the explosion of content. And everyone wanted to kind of produce and create new webpages strung together by hyperlinks. But ultimately, there wasn't kind of one trail from roughly the beginning to the end of all the pages that existed. And that's where it kind of search engines came in, Google now being the dominant one. And many of them that were built over those years. now no longer exist today. And truly, we've seen kind of the survival of the fittest in that space. And for me, and what we see Blockchain.com is that, ultimately, everyone that wants to interact with this new decentralised and distributed space and platforms around it, will need to have access to a wallet. And that wallet will act as your private key store, it will act as a password manager, it will basically protect and look after and give you access to all of your assets, whether that's financial assets, whether that's as we mentioned, your identity, whether it's contracts relating to real world tangible objects or not, I think then this will be the entry point and the springboard into this new decentralised space. And so I think it's super important that everyone gets a wallet that can access a wallet, everyone can onboard and have a localised experience. They can have on ramps and off ramps that are very familiar to them to bridge the gap between the traditional world and this new world. And I think ultimately, everyone should be able to use that as an exploratory tool to figure out and find out relevant content in the same way that uses a search engine and narrow down the scope on content that you're looking for, to consume. I think in the same way here, you will need to be able to index and search across many different disparate blockchains which offer some unique experience or some unique offering, whether it's some smart contract based game, whether it's actually looking for, as I say real tangible assets on chain, where it's actually just tracing your funds, and try and do tax reporting on them. Like there's many different opportunities and many different practical applications. But ultimately, all of them will need to be managed from one centralised place. And that's where platforms like ourselves, Blockchain.com and others, offer wallets that give you that first step and give you that access and identity that allows you to step into this world.
Matthew Cheung 34:11 Great, look forward to all those things happening! So to wrap up with the last question, so in terms of you as a person, so for anyone looking at your kind of career history, it looks like you've been very successful now you've worked to top tier investment banks; UBS, Goldman's, you were one of the first employees of Revolut, you grew out a crypto piece and function and product area there. And then you moved into Blockchain.com and now you're essentially running Engineering. And you're also involved in start-up investing and lots of other things and you play guitar as well apparently, but in terms of looking at what you've achieved so far, and I think you've also been on your various, you know, FinTech leader, you know, 40 under 40 lists and so on. So, there's a lot there which shows how successful that you've been? Can you give some advice to people listening who are starting their career? Or maybe still at university, I'm not quite sure where they want to go. But FinTech or crypto might be of interest? Could you give some advice to kind of a younger version of yourself who's starting out or to someone who is starting out? Now? I think I think you said before about taking risks, has been an important part of your career journey? How would someone who's starting out taking that same approach?
Lewis Tuff 35:48 Sure, yeah, I think the main things and the main ways I'd summarise this is like, one, you just need to work hard, right? Just work hard, persevere and put, put the time and effort in. And just choose your area of focus and niche and don't get distracted by everything else is going on. So if you really care about the crypto space, like choose a project, choose a chain, choose an asset, choose a company and just research it intently, and really kind of get a good deep understanding. So that when you jump into hopefully getting a role in one of these companies, you have a great kind of foundation to start with. So things like working hard, is ultimately the first and foremost priority. You don't have to be the smartest person in the room, but if you can outwork that person, then you're going to go a long way, and I think that no one should be held back by comparing themselves to peers. I think that you should always compare your own growth and trajectory against your own performance to date, right. And I think that's the second thing is like, a lot of people get worried about titles, by peers, by other people doing things that maybe are very impressive or are deemed to be very impressive. But I think that everyone has something unique and valuable to add and contribute. You may not find that in the first few years from graduation, don't get frustrated, just keep working hard. Go back to principle one. But ultimately, like don't get held back because of what other people think, or what other people say, I think that you need to find your own way and carve your own path. And I think it's super important to compare your own progress, your own goals and mindset, and not be kind of too influenced by other people. And I think the third thing is like find a mentor, like get out there, put yourself out in the community, do take those risks, not in terms of just career risks, but also just getting yourself out there, getting your voice heard, speaking at events, like going to conferences, or it's online or in person, hopefully one day. And being part of the ecosystem. I mean, this, as I mentioned earlier, there's so many opportunities now, to get your voice out there, whether it's through asynchronous content, like a blog, or whatever, it's pretty synchronous content with the social media platforms that allow you to interact with others, people that are kind of in disparate locations and globally distributed. I think, just take those opportunities. And if someone offers you their time, that is extremely valuable. So take that, but go into that conversation with something in mind. And I think if I'd add one more thing, actually, which I got kind of given to me as advice very early on and I've always kind of stuck with is that always just ask questions and ask for what you want. And I think you'll be often surprised at how willing people are to help you out and and guide you and mentor you. So this applies to kind of getting mentors, it applies to getting feedback, and applies just get by picking someone's brain on a particular topic or getting advice on a particular direction. I think like unless you asked the question, and put yourself out there and are a bit vulnerable, like you're not going to be able to get exposure to as many opportunities than you would have otherwise. So things like that's kind of the final thing is just like, ask the question. I mean, actually, most of my most impactful mentors, and I've tend to have a mentor to this day, have been through the process of me just reaching out cold and asking them, hey, I would love to meet up and be very explicit about what you want from them, but don't just say, hey, I want to have a coffee because I get hundreds of those every single day. And I'm sure many other people in the space do also. And many of them are sales, not even related to anything tangible or productive. But if you go into that conversation, say hey, I want to go for coffee. I'm thinking about my next career move. I'd love to focus on being an engineer or working in operations or doing trading or whatever it may be. And be explicit about what it is that you think they can bring to the table and offer you guidance on. I think a lot of people will be open to that and for me that's that's paid off dividends.
Matthew Cheung 39:57 Okay, thank you, Louis. That was spent an excellent session talking to you, lots of great advice and guidance about how to get into this as a career and also around crypto and the future of it. So thank you. And so we'll wrap up now, so this is Matt at Work in FinTech joined by Jag, who's been interviewing Lewis Tuff, VP Engineering of Blockchain.com.
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