Decentralized finance (DeFi) could also be just years away from mainstream adoption, in line with Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. However, significant regulatory and institutional hurdles still have to be overcome before it may well reach global proportions.
“I believe we’re about 30% of the best way there,” Nazarov said during an interview with MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe posted on YouTube on Tuesday.
According to Nazarov, DeFi, which is peer-to-peer financial services based on blockchain networks, could reach 50% global penetration once clearer regulation and laws can explain why it’s reliable.
Other industry executives have expressed an identical view. Michael Egorov, founding father of Curve Finance, said in February that the largest hurdles to DeFi adoption come from regulatory and legal uncertainty, in addition to the necessity to comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements.
He also highlighted issues related to liquidity and transparency of transactions, in addition to technical security risks.
The US government’s approval of DeFi could trigger a domino effect
Nazarov said that clarity will begin within the United States and spread quickly. “Many governments are following what the U.S. is doing because they need to be compatible with the U.S. economic system,” he said.
Sergey Nazarov (left) spoke with Michael van de Poppe (right). Source: Michael van de Poppe
Meanwhile, Michael Selig, chief adviser to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto task force, recently said, “When we take into consideration DeFi, it's type of a buzzword.” The focus ought to be more on on-chain applications, the features of those applications and whether an intermediary is involved.
Nazarov said global adoption of DeFi will reach 70% if there’s a transparent and efficient way for institutional users to speculate their capital and their customers' money in DeFi.
He assumed that full global adoption would only occur when DeFi became large enough that its capital base may very well be meaningfully in comparison with that provided in traditional finance.
100% DeFi adoption in 2030, Chainlink founder predicts
“I believe we'll be at 100% when you may have these sorts of pie charts that show the share of customer money or institutional capital that's in a DeFi system versus a TradFi system,” he said.
“I believe there can be charts like this in 2030,” he said, emphasizing that the charts can be just like those showing the Treasury market’s share of stablecoins. Although he said it's still not a big percentage, there’s an uptick.
“As that percentage gets larger, I believe people will begin to say, oh okay, wow, this percentage of all institutional capital is now on this blockchain-based form,” he said.
“Then you go from early adopters to mainstream,” he added.
DeFi lending protocols have seen significant momentum recently, driven by increasing institutional adoption of stablecoins and tokenized assets.
According to a recent Binance study, DeFi lending protocols have increased by greater than 72% year-to-date, from $53 billion initially of 2025 to over $127 billion in total cumulative value.
