Chainlink Co-Founder Named CFTC Advisor Amid Crypto Industry Expansion

Sergey Nazarov is a Russian-American entrepreneur and co-founder of Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network that connects smart contracts to real-world data.

Nazarov was born in Moscow in 1986 and moved to New York with his parents at a young age. He graduated from NYU in 2007 with a degree in philosophy and management.

In 2011, Nazarov founded QED Capital, an early-stage venture fund, where he also briefly ran CryptaMail, a decentralized email service built on the NXT blockchain, before co-founding the Secure Asset Exchange in May 2014. In September 2014, he co-founded SmartContract.com with Steve Ellis, working to develop a decentralized oracle network that connects smart contracts to external data.

This work led to the launch of Chainlink in June 2017, accompanied by a whitepaper co-authored by Nazarov and his team. As CEO of Chainlink Labs, formally established in 2020, Nazarov has overseen the development of Proof of Reserve and the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), both crucial for verifying data and connecting different blockchains.