Sergey Nazarov (businessman)
American entrepreneur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sergey Nazarov (born 1989) is an American entrepreneur and technologist who co-founded the decentralized blockchain oracle network Chainlink.[1][2]
Sergey Nazarov | |
|---|---|
Sergey Nazarov | |
| Born | 1989 (age 36–37) |
| Education | New York University |
| Occupations | |
| Known for | Co-founder of Chainlink |
Early life and education
Nazarov was born in 1989.[3] His parents were engineers. In the early 1990s, they emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States. In 2007, he graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and management. Following his graduation, Nazarov was a teaching assistant at the New York University's Stern School of Business.[4]
Career
In 2009, Nazarov co-founded the peer-to-peer marketplace ExistLocal and worked at the venture capital firm FirstMark Capital. In 2011, he established QED Capital, an early-stage venture fund. Through QED, he launched the decentralized email service CryptaMail and the Secure Asset Exchange in 2014.[4]
In September 2014, Nazarov co-founded SmartContract.com with Steve Ellis.[5] The company worked with Cornell Tech professor Ari Juels to develop a decentralized oracle network. This work led to the launch of Chainlink in June 2017, accompanied by a white paper co-authored by Nazarov, Ellis, and Juels.[6] Nazarov was also part of a team that worked with SWIFT on a pilot project for automated bond payments using a smart contract. As CEO of Chainlink Labs, Nazarov oversaw the project's growth and developed features including Proof-of-Reserve and the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP).[7]
In March 2025, Nazarov was invited to the Crypto Summit, held in the White House, in Washington, D.C.[8][9] In July 2025, Nazarov was present at the White House during the signing ceremony for the GENIUS Act.[10]
In February 2026, Nazarov was selected to serve on the Innovation Advisory Committee of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).[11]
Selected publications
- Ellis, Steve; Juels, Ari; Nazarov, Sergey (September 4, 2017). "ChainLink: A Decentralized Oracle Network" (PDF). Chainlink. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
- Juels, Ari; Breidenbach, Lorenz (November 20, 2019). "Mixicles: Simple Private Decentralized Finance". Chainlink. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
- "Bridging the Governance Gap: Interoperability for blockchain and legacy systems". World Economic Forum. December 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
- Breidenbach, Lorenz; Cachin, Christian; Chan, Benedikt; Coventry, Alex; Ellis, Steve; Juels, Ari; Koushanfar, Farinaz; Miller, Andrew; Magauran, Brendan; Moroz, Daniel; Nazarov, Sergey; Topliceanu, Alexandru; Zhang, Fan (April 15, 2021). "Chainlink 2.0: Next Steps in the Evolution of Decentralized Oracle Networks" (PDF). Chainlink Labs. Retrieved May 21, 2026.
- "Connecting Blockchains: Overcoming Fragmentation in Tokenised Assets". Swift. August 31, 2023. Retrieved May 21, 2026.