According to Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, decentralized finance (DeFi) may be years away from mainstream acceptance. However, significant regulatory and institutional hurdles still need to be overcome before it reaches global scale.
“I think we have gone about 30% of the way,” Nazarov he said during an interview with MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe posted on YouTube on Tuesday.
DeFi, which is a peer-to-peer financial service built on blockchain networks, could reach 50% global adoption once clearer regulation and legislation can explain why it is trustworthy, according to Nazarov.
Other industry executives share a similar sentiment. Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov said in February that the biggest barriers to DeFi adoption come from regulatory and legal uncertainty, as well as the need to comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements.
He also pointed to problems with liquidity and transparency of transactions and technical security risks.
US government approval of DeFi could set off a domino effect
Nazarov said the clarity would start with the US and spread quickly. “Many governments are following what the US is doing because they want to be compatible with the US financial system,” he said.
Meanwhile, Michael Selig, who serves as general counsel for the crypto task force at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, recently said, “When we think about DeFi, it’s kind of a buzzword,” and the focus should be more on onchain applications, the features of those applications, and whether an intermediary is involved.
Nazarov said that the global adoption of DeFi will reach 70% when there is a clear and efficient path for institutional users to invest their capital and clients’ money in DeFi.
He predicted that full global adoption will only occur when DeFi grows enough that its capital base can be meaningfully compared to funds allocated under traditional financing.
100% DeFi adoption in 2030, predicts Chainlink founder
“I think we’ll be at 100% when you have pie charts like that showing the percentage of client money or institutional capital that’s in the DeFi system versus the TradFi system,” he said.
“I think in 2030 there will be charts like this,” he said, noting that the charts will look similar to those showing the Treasury market percentage for stablecoins. While he said it’s still not a huge percentage, it’s building momentum.
“As that percentage gets higher, I think that’s when people start saying, oh right, wow, this percentage of all institutional capital is now in this blockchain-based form,” he said.
“That’s when you go from early adopters to mainstream,” he added.
Related: The new UAE financial law brings DeFi and Web3 into the regulatory scope
DeFi lending protocols have seen significant momentum recently, fueled by increasing institutional acceptance of stablecoins and tokenized assets.
According to recent Binance Research, DeFi lending protocols have grown more than 72% year-to-date, rising from $53 billion in early 2025 to more than $127 billion in cumulative total locked value.
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