Sergey Nazarov
Sergey Nazarov is a computer programmer and entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of the blockchain platform Chainlink. He was born to Russian immigrants and spent his childhood in the United States. Nazarov attended New York University, where he studied philosophy and management and earned his bachelor's degree
Nazarov's journey into the crypto world began over a decade ago, around the same time the Bitcoin white paper was published. While some in the crypto community speculate that Nazarov could be the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, he is publicly known as the co-founder of Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network that connects smart contracts to real-world data and systems.
In 2014, Nazarov co-founded SmartContract.com, a platform that enables developers to create and execute smart contracts on the blockchain. In 2017, SmartContract.com launched the Chainlink network, which is a decentralized oracle network. Chainlink has become one of the most widely used oracle networks in the blockchain industry, with partnerships and integrations with many other blockchain projects and enterprises.
As of December 2021, Chainlink had over $75 billion in total value secured, thanks largely to the network's oracle service, which has expanded to include crypto-related data, as well as off-chain information, such as sports results and weather reports. The network has also crossed over 1,000 projects in development, many of which were inspired by Chainlink's various hackathons.
In 2021, Chainlink launched services on various networks, such as Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon, and partnered with global enterprises like The Associated Press, AccuWeather, Amazon Web Services, and the Google Cloud Platform. Nazarov and his team introduced hybrid smart contracts, which combine on-chain and off-chain data provided by oracles, and Keepers, which are bots that automate DeFi-specific transactions.
In August 2021, Chainlink introduced the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which is an open-source standard for cross-chain communication. The CCIP will facilitate connections between hundreds of blockchain networks and will serve as the foundation for the Chainlink Programmable Token Bridge. To support their inter-chain vision, Chainlink has brought on experienced advisors, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan.
