Sergey Nazarov has worked in the blockchain industry since 2010, giving him one of the longest-running tenures of any technologist in the industry, which began only a year earlier in 2009 with Bitcoin’s creation. Sergey initially built some of the first smart contracts before blockchains like Ethereum were even a concept and went on to invent Decentralized Oracle Networks in the Chainlink whitepaper, which is the core technology powering Chainlink and underpinning the majority of data transfer onto all chains. After Chainlink became the leading source of all data transfer into various blockchains, it was successfully expanded to become the most secure form of cross-chain connectivity across blockchains for both data and value transfer. Chainlink has so far enabled over $20 trillion in transaction value.

Sergey Nazarov actively engages in U.S. policy discussions around blockchain and digital assets, recently participating in the White House Digital Asset Summit with President Trump and key industry leaders. Sergey also actively engages in fireside chats with government officials, including a sit-down conversation with U.S. Representative Bryan Steil in D.C. and a fireside chat with Majority Whip Tom Emmer at the Digital Chamber’s D.C. Blockchain Summit to explore how blockchain is reshaping the foundations of the U.S. financial system.

Andrew McCormick is Head of Institutional and Market Development at Chainlink Labs, where he leads engagement with the U.S. banks, asset managers, and market infrastructure providers adopting Chainlink as capital markets move onchain. Appointed to the newly created role in June 2026, he is responsible for Chainlink Labs' institutional engagement strategy—building relationships across the buy side and sell side, developing programs for financial institutions, and championing educational initiatives that help institutions understand blockchain's role in capital markets.

As a financial services executive and former securities lawyer, Andrew joined Chainlink Labs from eToro, where as Head of eToro U.S. he served as chief executive of the firm's U.S. broker-dealer, its New York BitLicensed entity, and its money services business, overseeing the launch of regulated digital asset products across all three. Before eToro, he spent roughly fourteen years as a securities lawyer and in-house regulatory counsel at Morgan Stanley, E*TRADE, and Eversheds Sutherland. With more than 15 years across trading, capital markets, and digital asset regulation, Andrew brings deep regulatory and institutional fluency to Chainlink's work bridging traditional finance and onchain infrastructure.

Cynthia Lo Bessette is head of Fidelity’s Digital Asset Management division where she is responsible for leading the teams responsible for the management and development of the investment framework and infrastructure for crypto research, asset tokenization, digital asset/crypto trading, and settlement. In addition, she leads the teams responsible for the development and implementation of new investment capabilities and investment products and solutions, business development, and digital asset education.
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Previously, Ms. Lo Bessette was head of Asset Management and Digital Assets Legal.
Prior to joining Fidelity in August 2019, Ms. Lo Bessette was Executive Vice President and General Counsel of OppenheimerFunds, and was also a director of OFI International, Ltd, the UK affiliate of OppenheimerFunds, and OppenheimerFunds ICAV, a family of UCITS offered globally.
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Ms. Lo Bessette received her law degree from the Fordham University School of Law and received her undergraduate degree, with honors, in east Asian studies and economics from the University of Michigan.

Stani Kulechov is a pioneer in decentralized finance (DeFi). He founded ETHLend in 2017 and went on to launch the Aave Protocol in 2020, the world’s leading decentralized lending protocol.

As Founder and CEO of Aave Labs, Stani continues to drive innovation across decentralized finance. His recent contributions includes Aave V4, a next-generation protocol architecture that unifies liquidity while isolating risk; GHO, Aave’s overcollateralized native stablecoin; Horizon, which connects institutional finance with onchain liquidity through tokenized assets; and Aave App, a self-custodial savings app designed to make onchain finance as simple and intuitive as modern fintech.

Nilesh Dusane is a payments transformation leader at Amazon Web Services, where he serves as Global Head of Institutional Payments. His work focuses on helping financial institutions worldwide modernize payment infrastructure using cloud-native architectures, real-time processing, and API-driven design. He operates at the intersection of instant payments, artificial intelligence, and emerging digital asset models—including stablecoins and tokenization—enabling banks to transition from legacy systems to scalable, always-on platforms.

His contributions emphasize interoperability, ISO 20022 readiness, and resilient systems that support faster, safer, and smarter transaction flows. He also incorporates AI and generative AI to enhance fraud detection, automate operational workflows, and deliver more intelligent, adaptive payment experiences at scale. He is actively working with customers on the emerging landscape of agentic payments—where AI agents initiate and settle transactions on behalf of users and businesses—and how machine-to-machine payment flows and programmable money may reshape the industry.

Alireza Dorfard is Head of Market Data + Services and part of the Deutsche Börse Trading & Clearing Management Team. Market Data + Services encompasses Deutsche Börse Group’s data dissemination business and focuses on continuous development and enhancement of the group's data products.

Before Alireza Dorfard joined Deutsche Börse Group, he was responsible for Mastercard's Data & Services business as part of the management team in Germany and Switzerland.

He started his career at the Boston Consulting Group, consulting clients in the financial services and capital markets industry.

Alireza Dorfard studied mathematics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and received his PhD in economics from the University of Trier.

David LaValle has over two decades of experience across both traditional financial services and digital assets, with a track record of leadership in executive roles and business expansion.  His expertise spans information services and the exchange-traded product ecosystem, including trading, indexing, data, regulation, distribution, capital markets, and exchanges.  An authority on market structure and an expert in trading in exchange and broker dealer environments, in multiple asset classes, across equity, ETF, closed end fund and structured product ranges.  Dynamic leader able to create and drive revenue while adapting to market conditions, risk, regulation and competitive forces.  Accomplished public speaker with extensive C-level interaction.  FINRA Series 3, 7, 24, 55 & 63 licenses.

Over the past decade, I have worked at the intersection of digital assets, financial markets, and regulation inside global financial institutions, helping translate blockchain from an experimental concept into production-grade financial infrastructure - from protocol to production.