SmartCon 2025 featured presentations from more than 100 web3 pioneers and financial leaders, who gathered to highlight the theme,“From Crypto to Capitol Hill.” To delve deeper into the most groundbreaking topics from this year’s event, Nasdaq TradeTalks’ Jill Malandrino interviewed some of the most influential speakers on-site at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Pavilion.
David Bleznak is the co-founder and chairman of LitFinancial, a U.S. mortgage lender pioneering a stablecoin-powered mortgage model. Bleznak sat down with Malandrino to discuss bringing mortgages onchain via Chainlink’s data and cross-chain interoperability standard.
LitFinancial offers mortgage products spanning purchase to refinance, second liens, HELOCs, and reverse mortgages. The company’s litUSD stablecoin is backed 1:1 by cash and cash equivalents, which are invested in traditional, interest-generating financial instruments to offset net capital costs.
Designed to modernize traditional lending models, litUSD streamlines treasury operations and increases transparency across mortgage finance in compliance with the GENIUS Act, a landmark piece of legislation that creates a federal regulatory framework for fully collateralized stablecoins in the U.S.
Bleznak believes stablecoins will transform mortgage lending.
“It’s a novel financial instrument that’s going to change the way lenders capitalize themselves, do transactions, record transactions, and provide rewards to customers,” he told Malandrino.
“It’s really impactful. It’s going to change the way everybody does business.”
In October, LitFinancial integrated Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard on Ethereum to make litUSD natively transferable across blockchains via Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). In November, LitFinancial integrated the Chainlink standard to enhance litUSD with auditable, real-time collateralization and liquidity data.
“Chainlink is integral,” said Bleznak. “They’re providing the insurance that what we’re selling is in fact what we’re saying we are selling.”
He expects increasing regulatory clarity will further drive institutional blockchain adoption and boost the consumer experience with better rates and faster processing.
“You’re going to see a boom in the efficiencies and the amount of business that’s happening, whether it’s in private credit with trading of equities, whether that’s stocks and bonds or issuance of mortgage loans like we’re doing.”
Watch Jill Malandrino’s full interview with David Bleznak.