Sergey Nazarov (Chainlink): The Man Who Wants to Chain the World Together
How Sergey Nazarov built the rails for a global internet of contracts — and why 2025 might be the year it all locks in.
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You wouldn’t know it from his monotone delivery or the plaid shirts he favors on stage, but Sergey Nazarov is building one of the most quietly radical revolutions in crypto — and possibly in global finance.
In January 2025, Nazarov stood in front of a room of developers, regulators, and financiers to deliver a message:
If the transaction doesn’t come into existence, our industry doesn’t move forward
For Nazarov, that transaction isn’t just a technical construct. It’s a metaphor — a mission. The co-founder of Chainlink isn’t here to pump coins. He’s here to rebuild the very machinery of trust.
The Oracle Whisperer
Born in Russia, raised in New York, and trained in philosophy and management at NYU, Nazarov doesn’t fit the typical crypto founder mold. He doesn’t tweet much. He doesn’t chase headlines. What he does chase is infrastructure — the kind of invisible scaffolding that lets everything else work.
In 2017, along with Steve Ellis and Cornell professor Ari Juels, Nazarov co-founded Chainlink to solve the “oracle problem” — the gap between on-chain code and off-chain data. The problem sounds technical. It isn’t. Without oracles, smart contracts are blind. They can’t:
- know what the price of ETH is,
- verify weather conditions for insurance payouts,
- settle a bet,
- launch a bond,
- trigger a trade.
Oracles are the bridge between the code and the world.
Chainlink built that bridge. And then started laying down a global highway.
Since its mainnet launch in 2019, Chainlink has become the de facto data layer for DeFi. It now secures over $14 trillion in transaction value. It’s the plumbing behind countless protocols, platforms, and funds. And as Nazarov tells it, that’s just the beginning.
DeFi Was Just the First Draft
The DeFi community is the hub of innovation, but it’s only one half of the future. The other half is capital markets — and governments,
Nazarov emphasized in his 2025 keynote
Over the last two years, Chainlink has quietly become the connective tissue between public blockchains and some of the world’s largest financial institutions. Tokenized funds, central banks, asset managers — they’re not just experimenting anymore. They’re integrating.
This year, Chainlink introduced Chainlink Runtime (CRE), a coordination layer that links traditional systems with decentralized infrastructure. Think of CRE as a conductor — orchestrating:
- data,
- identity,
- payments,
- and logic
across chains and across eras.
We’re becoming the most reliable and secure method of cross-chain transactions. Now we’re moving beyond just data — we’re defining how the world works,
Nazarov declared
It’s a bold statement from a founder known more for systems architecture than slogans. But Nazarov has always played the long game.
From GPUs to Global Standards
His crypto journey began in the early 2010s, when he rented GPUs to mine bitcoin — a move that paid off in a week and sparked a deeper curiosity. Over the next few years, Nazarov launched or led several projects that laid the groundwork for his long-term vision:
- Secure Asset Exchange — a decentralized trading platform.
- CryptaMail — a blockchain-based messaging service.
- SmartContract (2014) — the foundation for what would become Chainlink.
By the time Chainlink launched, Nazarov had already been thinking about verifiable agreements for half a decade.
He speaks about infrastructure the way some founders speak about freedom: with reverence and obsession. In his vision, Chainlink becomes something like a digital interstate system — a public good, essential to the functioning of a modern society.
The pinnacle of success is building something that becomes a public good, important to how society functions properly,
he once reflected
The Quiet Collision
But Nazarov isn’t naïve about the world Chainlink is entering.
The existing financial system is deeply entrenched. Those technologies won’t be going away,
he admits
That’s the paradox he lives in: build for the future, but bridge the past. Convince both crypto idealists and institutional giants to meet on shared rails. And maybe most difficult of all — do it without breaking everything in the process.
Chainlink is now working with governments. Central banks and corporations are exploring how its infrastructure could power:
2025, he predicts, will be the year “we rapidly capture the capital markets opportunity — and set Chainlink up to be a global standard.”
There’s tension in that goal. Standards are usually written by states, not startups. But Nazarov believes the tech wins when the outcomes are too compelling to ignore.
The Internet of Contracts
Nazarov’s long-term vision is clear: a fully connected “internet of contracts,” where everyone — from retail users to the largest institutions — can interact across chains, systems, and jurisdictions. Not just trade tokens, but define identities, verify facts, and create new forms of economic agreement.
Eventually we’re going to see highly regulated institutions and the DeFi community merge into a single internet of contracts,
he envisioned
That merger isn’t just a dream. It’s becoming infrastructure. And that infrastructure is starting to look less like a startup — and more like law.
No Victory Lap
Despite Chainlink’s traction, Nazarov remains understated. There are no flashy declarations, no performative decentralization theater. Just relentless iteration and a conviction that smart contracts, properly implemented, can make society fairer.
He talks often about “information asymmetry” — the fact that markets reward insiders and punish everyone else. In his world, contracts are transparent, triggers are automatic, and access is universal.
That world isn’t here yet. But if Nazarov has his way, it’s already under construction.
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