Yesterday, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov spoke with CNBC Crypto World’s Talia Kaplan in between meetings with Senate Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill about the race to pass a landmark crypto market structure bill by the end of the year.
“The value of the bill and the value of our industry is so high that I think both the Democrats and the Republicans have enough incentive to come together,” Nazarov said.
“The commitment is definitely there and I think what will continue to happen is they’ll come together, they’ll get past this bump in the road, and they’ll move on to make this bill happen.”
He described an ongoing effort to address key concerns, such as illicit finance, that have stymied bipartisan collaboration on the bill.
“We try to provide technological solutions and ideas that can assure them that blockchain technology actually makes illicit finance less likely, that assures them that their concerns about how transactions work can be addressed correctly onchain,” he explained.
“We clarify what the technology can do. And usually once we clarify that, they become more comfortable with moving ahead.”
Nazarov drew a clear distinction between traditional DeFi and the concept of regulated DeFi that maximizes the benefits of decentralized technology in a fully regulated, compliant way.
“I think if blockchain technology became the leading source of banking operations and money transmission operations, you’d actually see a massive reduction in illicit finance, not an increase. And I think that’s the thing that people need to understand.”
Last month, after the SEC released 23 proposed rules that would make it easier to tokenize real-world assets in the United States, Nazarov met with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and key policymakers at the White House to discuss how the U.S. can become a global leader in blockchain and digital asset innovation.
While the ongoing government shutdown “has slowed everything down” in terms of regulatory engagement, Nazarov is still committed to getting the market structure bill across the finish line.
“I’m hopeful that these two groups, the Democrats and Republicans, can come together,” he said.
“I think the political will is still there.”