Decentralized Systems Group @ Yale CS
Decentralized Systems enabled by Internet-scale consensus and cryptography can enable transformative applications with strong security, privacy, resiliency, and fairness guarantees. We work on fundamental technical problems to advance this vision.
Research
We work on two broad themes: cryptography for decentralized systems and economic security of decentralized systems.
Select recent projects are:
- Qelect: Lattice-based Single Secret Leader Election (SSLE) Made Practical
- ZipNet: Low-bandwidth anonymous broadcast from (dis)Trusted Execution Environments
- RediSwap: MEV Redistribution Mechanism for CFMMs
- Prooφ: a ZKP Market Mechanism
- zkBridge: trustless cross-chain interoperability using SNARKs.
- Mempool Guru: an open public service that persists Ethereum mempool data for research.
- DECO: proving TLS data provenance while protecting privacy.
See the publication page for an up-to-date list of papers.
Members
Faculty
Postdoctoral Researchers
- Kaihua Qin (2023-, Affiliated Researcher; co-hosted with Prof. Zhong Shao)
- Mengqian Zhang (2023-, Postdoc Associate)
- Recipient of Ethereum Academic Grant Round 2024
- Aviv Yaish (2024-, Postdoc Associate; co-hosted with Profs. Ben Fisch, Charalampos (Babis) Papamanthou, and Zhong Shao)
- Tiantian Gong (2025-, Postdoc Associate; co-advised with Prof. Ittay Eyal (Technion))
PhD students
- Sarisht Wadhwa (2021-, co-advised with Kartik Nayak at Duke University)
- Sen Yang (2022-)
- Giannis Kaklamanis (2023-)
- Wenhao Wang (2023-)
- Recipient of ZK Fellowship from Matter Labs, Ethereum Foundation ZKGrant
- Yunhao Wang (2023-)
Undergrad Advisees
- Yiğit Kılıçoğlu (2024 Fall)
- Yuhang Cui (2024 Spring): A Blockchain-based Framework for Bug Bounty Programs in Genomics
- Andrew Wang (2023 Fall)
- Megha Joshi (2023 Spring)
- Justin Ye (2023 Spring)
Opening
Teaching
See the teaching page for a list offered by DSG.
Alums
- Lulu Zhou (graduated 2024 → EigenLayer)
- Yanxin Pang (intern, 2024)
- Fangyan Shi (intern, 2024)
- Yujie Lu (2022-2024, co-advised with Charalampos (Babis) Papamanthou)
- Rui Wang (MS student, 2023 → PhD student at Purdue)
- Yixiao Wang (intern, 2023 → MS student at Cornell)
- Chengrui Fang (intern, 2023)
- Zhenyu Zhao (intern, 2023 → PhD student at HKUST Crypto-Fintech Lab)
- Rongwu Xu (intern, 2022 → PhD student at UW)
- Zerui Cheng (intern 2022 → PhD student at Princeton)
- Shutong Qu (intern, 2022)
- Yuxuan Lu (intern 2021 → PhD student at Peking University)
Acknowledgments
DSG is currently supported by the generous grants and gifts from:
