SmartCon Insights | Chainlink Co-founder: On-Chain Finance is Moving Towards the Mainstream; CRE Will Drive Collaborative Development Between Institutions and DeFi

Chainlink's annual flagship conference, SmartCon, opened yesterday in New York. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov delivered a keynote address, stating that the blockchain industry is at a critical juncture, poised for mainstream adoption, and that the convergence of institutional finance and DeFi will be a core driver of industry growth. Sergey pointed out that Chainlink is committed to reshaping the trust mechanism of the financial system through cryptographic guarantees and the "single source of truth" in smart contracts, eliminating human error and opaque operations. Nazarov announced the official launch of Chainlink's cross-system runtime environment platform, CRE (Chainlink Runtime Environment), which helps developers integrate multiple chains, oracles, data sources, and compliance systems into an efficient workflow, simplifying the complex process of building on-chain applications. The launch of CRE will enable institutions to deploy on-chain applications while complying with regulatory requirements, achieving DeFi-compatible transactions and providing reliable support for tokenized funds, stablecoin issuance, and cross-chain asset transfers. He also noted that the Central Bank of Brazil and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority have already used CRE and CCIP for cross-border pilot programs of CBDC and electronic bills of lading. Institutions such as S&P Global, FTSE Russell, Tradeweb, and Deutsche Börse Group have already put their data on the blockchain, establishing new data standards for the industry. Finally, Sergey Nazarov stated that Chainlink will also launch a privacy-preserving system based on a trusted execution environment and zero-knowledge proofs, enabling smart contracts to maintain transparency while ensuring privacy. This will allow developers to efficiently and quickly build high-quality, advanced smart contracts and bring them to market, while also meeting the requirements of regulatory bodies, society, and the world at large, thereby achieving widespread global adoption.