Chainlink Co-founder Sergey Nazarov: Tokenization Will Serve On-chain Cash, Stock Funds, and AI Agents
Sergey Nazarov stated that tokenization will build an efficient financial system, allowing on-chain cash, stocks, and funds to be directly accessed by AI agents.
At the Sibos conference hosted by Swift, he discussed the entry of agent-based AI into custody and asset services with JPMorgan and the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, focusing on agents evolving from providing advice to becoming market participants capable of initiating trades independently. At the Philadelphia Fed's fintech conference, he shared the stage with BlackRock's William Su, Vanguard's John Evans, and SharpLink's Joseph Chalom to discuss the infrastructure needed for institutional asset tokenization. He noted that cross-chain costs are "dropping like a stone," and banks will issue tokenized deposits in bulk; the SEC approved a five-year innovation exemption last week, allowing tokenized U.S. stocks to be traded on-chain. He believes that even if the Clarity Act does not pass the Senate, the usage resulting from the exemption will make any retraction painful.
During a CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee roundtable, he mentioned that the next step is stock tokenization, moving traditional market capitalization onto the blockchain, with the U.S. accounting for about 60% of global stock value and flow. The speed of tokenization will determine whether market share can be retained. He also warned that AI could attack and manipulate markets, making the security of private keys and smart contracts even more valuable. Chainlink simultaneously launched a preview of a gateway for agents, allowing them to self-register and pay per use with dollar stablecoins on Base to access data streams and initiate on-chain operations through workflows; the documentation specifies that this gateway cannot prevent agents from bypassing interfaces and causing disruptions. CCIP 2.0 has been launched, incorporating compliance, risk control, configurability, and network participation based on institutional feedback, for transporting data and assets between public and private chains. Chalom wrote that by 2030, global financial services annual revenue will exceed $1 trillion, and by 2035, about $4 trillion will enter the competitive range, driven by stablecoins, tokenized assets, on-chain finance, and agent automation.
Tokenization of U.S. Treasuries and broader physical asset tokens have previously been counted separately, with institutions including JPMorgan, custodial trusts, State Street, and Fidelity International integrating oracles and interoperability. Funds are shifting from traditional custody accounts to token containers that can be collateralized and lent, with agents responsible for switching between interest rates, risks, and taxes. Buyers are asset managers who want agents to directly handle securities, while sellers provide data, cross-chain, and identity layer infrastructure. The event is driven by the overlap of Sibos, Fed meetings, and equity exemptions. Beneficiaries are the oracle networks that first receive institutional distribution standards; those under pressure are brokers still relying on manual instructions and closed accounts, as well as custodial rules that have yet to resolve agent overreach in trading.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Nazarov has transformed Chainlink from a price-feeding oracle into a standard component for institutional blockchain integration: starting with stablecoins and U.S. Treasuries, then stock exemptions, and now opening gateways for agents. The path involves collaborating with Swift, GLEIF, and JPMorgan, framing "agents as market participants" as the next phase of custody. CCIP 2.0 modifies bridges according to bank risk control checklists, Fulcrum connects financing venues, and the fee model converts corporate and on-chain revenues into LINK reserves. This is not a new public chain narrative, but rather embedding compliance fields of the existing account system into tokens.
Capital is shifting from brokerage commissions to data calls and cross-chain settlement fees. Agents use stablecoins to pay per use for price reading and order placement, turning idle holdings into collateralizable on-chain assets. The motivation is to capture a share of the $1 trillion to $4 trillion in agent financial revenue. Resources are shifting from human advisors to verifiable identities and workflows: whoever controls the boundaries of agent wallet permissions controls the ultimate destination of funds. The SEC's five-year exemption acts as an accelerator, with withdrawal costs designed to be "too painful to retract if usage is sufficiently large."
In comparison, DTCC is compressing settlement cycles, BlackRock is tokenizing fund shares, and PayPal is embedding stablecoins into payments. The industry is moving from pilot tokens to competing for distribution standards: who will be the default bridge between institutions and agents. The speed of U.S. stock tokenization is framed as a condition for retaining global market share, with dollar stablecoins positioned as the on-chain extension of reserve currency. The phase is about expanding standards and controlling interfaces.
The essence is a technological replacement of pricing power transfer. The instruction layer shifts from human button pressing to agents adjusting interfaces, while the asset layer transitions from registered corporate accounts to data-embedded tokens. The mechanism is: once cash, stocks, and funds can be directly read and written by machines, intermediary rents will shift from licenses to oracles, identities, and cross-chain; security will transition from preventing hacking to preventing agent overreach. Whoever first becomes the default financial system called by agents will collect that new layer of rent first.
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Once assets are on-chain, the next client is an agent, not a person.
Once the exemption is utilized at scale, regulation will find it hard to retract.
The risk control standards of the bridge will become new market access criteria.