Vision

Secure Decentralized Systems (SDS) are a new generation of computer systems with strong security guarantees codified in their design and verifiable by end users. Our research aims to advance the technical foundation of SDS and expand its capacity to secure the most critical systems that power society.

Specifically, our research program consists of the following three thrusts:

1. Securing decentralized systems: A constructive approach to addressing novel security problems that arise from decentralization (e.g., the lack of a central coordinator), openness (e.g., attackers can observe or even join the protocol), and economic incentives (e.g., bribery).
2. Breaking decentralized systems: A destructive approach that demonstrates fundamental flaws in existing designs, through new attacks or empirical analysis of real-world dysfunctions.
3. Bridging centralized and decentralized systems: Using decentralized protocols to strengthen incumbent centralized systems, thereby bringing SDS benefits into domains where centralization dominates due to efficiency and network effects. We also explore the converse: how to securely compose centralized components to enhance decentralized applications.

Select recent projects towards this vision 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

• Prof. Fan Zhang

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)

Teaching

See the teaching page for a list offered by DSG.

Alums

• Lulu Zhou (graduated 2024 → Protocol Researcher at 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: