6 questions to Lugui Tillier on Bitcoin, ordinals and the future of crypto

4 weeks ago

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Lugui Tillier is the business director of Lumx Studios, one of the leading cryptocurrency companies in Rio de Janeiro, a city with a booming crypto industry.

But for Tillier – who has dual Belgian and Brazilian nationality – cryptocurrency is more than a job. It was a passion sparked by a friend, and it became his first full-time crypto job at Lumx in 2021.

1) How did you get into crypto?

I was very lucky because the father of one of my closest friends is the one who founded the first crypto company here in Brazil in 2016 – BLP Crypto. Before that, he was always talking to me about crypto and blockchain, telling me it was the future and I should learn more. So around 2019, I finally listened to him and started studying Bitcoin. I started working for Lumx in 2021.

2) Tell us about Lumx and what you do for them.

We are a blockchain abstraction solution for large enterprises. We help anyone wishing to integrate blockchain into their business, or companies wishing to deploy projects or experiment on blockchain. We do things like payment solutions and decentralized identity (DID) solutions.

Large companies can mainly focus only on their own applications, and not on hiring blockchain engineers or learning blockchain technology and infrastructure, which are still complex. So we enable these large companies to work and test safely. I’m the head of sales for Lumx, so I’m responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with blockchains and protocols.

3) Are you investing in crypto yourself? What interests you most at the moment?

Lugui Tillier of the Savvy Brain Academy in Tanzania, a school he began donating to in 2017 using Bitcoin. Source: Lugui Tillier

I’m investing a lot in Layer 2. (I like Polygon, Arbitrum, and ZK solutions, such as ZK-Sync and Linea.) Over the last cycle, we’ve seen many projects start on Ethereum, and that’s not all. was not sustainable. We were paying $50 (or more) per transaction. There were gas war days and people were paying almost six Ethereum per transaction.

I’m still not sure if there was simply a lack of knowledge about the possibility of building things on top of a layer 2 among new projects and companies at the time. But people wanted exposure to Ethereum, so things that should have happened on layer 2s were happening on Ethereum.

Liquidity is now flowing to layer 2, so they are better prepared for the next wave.

4) Where do you see Bitcoin and Ethereum in 10 years?

I think Bitcoin and Ethereum are the leading consensus platforms in the world. This is curious, because these days it is rare to see Bitcoin as a platform. We already see Ethereum as a platform on which you can build other applications and layers. Due to the advancement of certain protocols – like Taproot Assets and Ordinals – I see Bitcoin venturing into a new era.

Related: Bitcoin Fragments Could Become More Valuable Than Full Bitcoins

In addition to being a currency to pay for things or a store of value, you can store other currencies in it. Bitcoin is moving from a time when it was an asset to one where it will become a platform for storing and trading other assets.

5) What is the main obstacle to the mass adoption of blockchain technology?

Lugui Tillier (second from right) in 2022 speaking at NFC Brasil, one of the leading Web3 events in Latin America, where he shared his experience working with traditional Web3 companies. Source: Lugui Tillier

Even though we have made significant progress, blockchain remains composed of complex infrastructure. It’s complicated not only for end users, but also for traditional businesses who want to work with it. I often joke that you only realize how complex MetaMask is when you try to teach your dad how to use it – hence the importance of emerging abstraction solutions.

Although these solutions may slightly compromise decentralization, they preserve the programmability and automation of a blockchain and significantly reduce the barriers to entry. This is crucial because we now have a second option. People can stay 100% decentralized if they prefer, but for those who don’t want to, they have the option to adopt a “semi-decentralized” model, which is the missing link to widespread adoption.

6) What do you do in your free time?

I really like studying philosophy, especially Stoicism. Everyone who works or lives in this crypto world is exposed to a lot of volatility and is used to a lot of dopamine and incentives. I like things that you are not able to control, so I like the stoic philosophy. The mantra of Stoicism is to cultivate different things that you are not able to control. When you master this, you will be able to live peacefully in this crazy crypto world. So this is one of my favorite topics, not only for my personal life, but also for my professional life.