Sergey Nazarov compares Chainlink’s CRE to Ethereum’s early breakthrough

Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said the Chainlink Runtime Environment could be as transformative as the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said the recently launched Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) could have a transformative effect on the blockchain industry, comparing its potential to the impact of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

In a YouTube video published on Monday by Chainlink, Nazarov said the CRE “can have the same impact that the EVM had on the blockchain industry.” The EVM, introduced by Ethereum, enabled Turing-complete smart contracts, which significantly reduced the development time from months to weeks by allowing developers to use loops and state-based operations — capabilities unavailable in Bitcoin Script.

Nazarov said the smart contract development ecosystem is complex and has become a web of interconnected on and offchain systems. Chainlink’s CRE, he said, adds a layer of abstraction that makes managing this complexity much easier for developers.

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