CV

Research Experience

• 2024–2027 Postdoc Associate. Institute: Yale University. Hosts: Profs. Fan Zhang (main), Ben Fisch, Charalampos Papamanthou, Zhong Shao
  🏆 Named one of the CBER Forum’s Rising Stars of '25
  🏆 Named one of the Hebrew University's 40 Under 40 Young Leaders of '25
• 2025–2026 Visiting Researcher. Institute: Complexity Science Hub, Vienna. Host: Prof. Bernhard Haslhofer
• 2023–2024 Research Consultant. Company: Matter Labs. Host: Prof. Benjamin Livshits
• 2023–2024 Visiting Researcher. University of Innsbruck. Host: Prof. Rainer Böhme

Education

• 2019–2024 Ph.D. (direct track) in Computer Science. Institute: Hebrew University. Advisor: Aviv Zohar
  🏆 Named one of the CBER Forum’s Top PhD Graduates of '23–'24
  🏆 Recipient of the merit-based Ze’ev Jabotinsky 4-year fellowship (460K NIS)
• 2016–2018 MS.c. in Computer Science. Institute: Hebrew University. Advisor: Aviv Zohar
  🏆 Received the rector prize for ranking first in MS.c. class
• 2013–2016 BS.c. in Computer Science. Institute: Hebrew University
  🏆 The Hebrew University’s Amirim Science excellence scholarship

Papers

1. GEB'25 Transaction Fee Mechanisms Robust to Welfare-Increasing Collusion
   Authors: Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
   In: accepted with minor revision to Games and Economic Behavior (GEB)
2. FC'25 Proophi: A ZKP Market Mechanism
   Authors: Wenhao Wang, Lulu Zhou, Aviv Yaish, Fan Zhang, Ben Fisch, Benjamin Livshits
   In: Proceedings of Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2025 (FC'25) Acceptance rate: 15%
   🏭 Industry collaboration with Matter Labs and Fermah
3. EC'24 Barriers to Collusion-resistant Transaction Fee Mechanisms
   Authors: Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
   In: Proceedings of the 25th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC'24) A*
4. MARBLE'24 Discrete & Bayesian Transaction Fee Mechanisms
   Authors: Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
   In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Mathematical Research for Blockchain Economy (MARBLE'24)
5. WWW'24 Incentives in the Ether: Practical Cryptocurrency Economics & Security
   Authors: Aviv Yaish
   In: Companion Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2024 (WWW'24)
6. USENIXSEC'24 Speculative Denial-of-Service Attacks in Ethereum
   Authors: Aviv Yaish, Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Aviv Zohar, Arthur Gervais
   In: Proceedings of the 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIXSEC'24) A*
   🏆 Awarded a Flashbots bounty
   🏆 Awarded an Ethereum Foundation bounty
   🏆 Ranked 63rd in MLSEC's Normalized Top-100 Security Papers list 📰 Covered by Blockworks
7. WWW'24 Blockchain Censorship
   Authors: Toni Wahrstatter, Jens Ernstberger, Aviv Yaish, Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Taro Tsuchiya, Sebastian Steinhorst, Nicholas Cristin, Davor Svetinovic, Mikolaj Barczentewicz, Arthur Gervais
   In: Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2024 (WWW'24) A*
8. SBC'24 Suboptimality in DeFi
   Authors: Aviv Yaish, Maya Dotan, Kaihua Qin, Aviv Zohar, Arthur Gervais
   In: The Science of Blockchain Conference 2024 (SBC'24) Acceptance rate: 14%
   🏆 Received the 4th Annual Crypto and Blockchain Economics Research (CBER) Conference's Best Paper Award
9. DeFi@CCS'23 The Vulnerable Nature of Decentralized Governance in DeFi
   Authors: Maya Dotan, Aviv Yaish, Hsin-Chu Yin, Eytan Tsytkin, Aviv Zohar
   In: Proceedings of the 2023 Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security (DeFi@CCS'23)
10. IGTC'23 Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
    Authors: Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
    In: The 12th Annual Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society (IGTC'23)
11. CCS'23 Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition
    Authors: Aviv Yaish, Gilad Stern, Aviv Zohar
    In: Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS'23) A*
    🏆 Received the ACM CCS 2023 Distinguished Paper Award
    📰 Covered by International Business Times, CryptoSlate, Cointelegraph
12. AFT'23 Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?
    Authors: Aviv Yaish, Aviv Zohar
    In: Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT'23)
13. EC'22 Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time For Your Best Interest
    Authors: Aviv Yaish, Saar Tochner, Aviv Zohar
    In: Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC'22) A*
    🏆 Awarded an Ethereum Foundation bounty
    Under Submission
14. Inequality in the Age of Pseudonymity
    Authors: Aviv Yaish, Nir Chemaya, Lin William Cong, Dahlia Malkhi
15. Insecurity Through Obscurity: Veiled Vulnerabilities in Closed-Source Contracts
    Authors: Sen Yang, Kaihua Qin, Aviv Yaish, Fan Zhang
16. Quantifying Inequality in Blockchain Networks
    Authors: Nir Chemaya, Aviv Yaish, Shahar Yacouel, Dahlia Malkhi, Lin William Cong
17. Airdrops: Giving Money Away is Harder than it Seems
    Authors: Johnnatan Messias*, Aviv Yaish*, Benjamin Livshits (*: equal contribution)
    🏭 Industry collaboration with Matter Labs
18. Platform Building With Fake Consumers: On Double Dippers and Airdrop Farmers
    Authors: Hanna Halaburda, Ben Livshits, Aviv Yaish
    🏭 Industry collaboration with Matter Labs
19. Strategic Vote Timing in Elections With Public Tallies
    Authors: Aviv Yaish, Svetlana Abramova, Rainer Böhme
20. Scheduling With Time Discounts
    Authors: Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
21. Advancing AI Research Assistants with Expert-Involved Learning
    Authors: Tianyu Liu, Simeng Han, Xiao Luo, Hanchen Wang, Biqing Zhu, Rihao Qu, Yufeng Liu, Xinyue Cui, Yuge Wang, Keyi Li, Jiapeng Chen, Aviv Yaish, Yuhang Chen, Minsheng Hao, Chuhan Li, Kexing Li, Arman Cohan, Hua Xu, Mark Gerstein, Hongyu Zhao

Grants

• 2025 Columbia Business School Digital Future Initiative Grant. Title: A Theory of Staking. Role: PI. Budget: 30K USD
• 2025 Ethereum Foundation Grant. Title: A Cryptographic Cookbook for Mechanism Designers. Role: PI. Budget: 19.8K USD
• 2025 Ethereum Foundation Grant. Title: A Theory of Staking. Role: PI. Budget: 33K USD
• 2023 Ethereum Foundation Grant. Title: DoS implications of censorship. Role: PI. Budget: 72K USD
• 2023 Ethereum Foundation Grant. Title: Quantitative Analysis of Censorship. Role: Co-PI. Budget: 25K USD

Funding, Honors & Awards

• 2025 Named one of the Hebrew University's 40 Under 40 Young Leaders
• 2025 Rochester Institute of Technology's Future Faculty Career Exploration program
• 2025 Named one of the CBER Forum's Rising Stars of '25
• 2025 Edge Esmeralda scholarship
• 2024 The 4th Annual CBER Conference's Best Paper Award
• 2024 Chaincode Labs' Research Workshop travel grant
• 2024 Two papers selected for the last stage of the CSAW'24 Applied Research Competition (ARC)
• 2024 ACM EC24 travel funding
• 2023 Named one of the CBER Forum’s Top PhD Graduates of '23–'24
• 2023 Flashbots company’s bounty
• 2023 Ethereum Foundation’s bounty
• 2023 ACM CCS23 Distinguished Paper Award
• 2023 AFT23 travel funding
• 2023 ACM EC23 travel funding
• 2023 ACM CCS23 travel grant
• 2023 Austria-Israel Academic Network Innsbruck (AIANI) fellowship
• 2023 ACM CCS23 iMentor workshop travel funding
• 2023 The Hebrew University’s Diversity Unit’s September travel grant for outstanding PhDs
• 2023 The Hebrew University’s Diversity Unit’s March travel grant for outstanding PhDs
• 2022 Vaad Edat Hasfaradim’s scholarship
• 2022 The Hebrew University’s Authority for Research Students’ travel grant
• 2021 The Hebrew University’s award for excellence in teaching
• 2021 Ethereum Foundation bounty (awarded, did not collect)
• 2020 Ranked 9th out of 111 teaching staff in The Hebrew University’s CS school
• 2019 Zcash Foundation’s Zcon1 travel scholarship
• 2018 Merit-based Ze’ev Jabotinsky 4-year fellowship for direct-to-PhD students (460K NIS)
• 2018 The Hebrew University’s Dean prize
• 2018 The Hebrew University’s Rector prize, for ranking first in MS.c. class
• 2016 First place at the Hebrew University’s Machine Learning hackathon
• 2013 The Hebrew University’s Amirim Science excellence scholarship
• 2007 Ranked in the 99th percentile in Israel’s SAT equivalent (psychometric exam)

Teaching

• 2017–2024 Lecturer. Course: System Introduction (67100). Institute: Hebrew University
  Details: Sole lecturer and creator of a MOOC on the commandline of UNIX-esque operating systems, taught 850 students/year.
• 2017–2023 Lecturer. Course: From NAND to Tetris (67925/6). Institute: Hebrew University
  Details: Sole lecturer for a course on building a computer from the ground up, managed 7 TAs and taught +500 students/year.
• 🏆 2021 Award for excellence in teaching from the Hebrew University's CS school
• 2021 Teaching Assistant. Course: Metric Embedding Theory & Its Algorithmic Applications (67720). Institute: Hebrew University
• 2020 Teaching Assistant. Course: Introduction to Cryptocurrencies (67513). Institute: Hebrew University
  Details: Co-created and co-taught a graduate course on cryptocurrencies, mentored 25 student projects.
• 🏆 2020 Ranked 9th out of 111 teaching staff at the Hebrew University's CS school
• 2017 Teaching Assistant. Course: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming (67125). Institute: Hebrew University
• 2015–2017 Teaching Assistant. Course: Programming Workshop in C / C++ (67318/9, 67321/2). Institute: Hebrew University