Aviv Yaish

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Bio. I research the intricate relationship between the economics and security of cryptocurrencies. I am currently finishing my PhD at HUJI, where I had the pleasure of being advised by Prof. Aviv Zohar, and will soon start a postdoc at Yale, where I am grateful for being hosted by Prof. Fan Zhang, and co-hosted by Profs. Ben Fisch, Charalampos (Babis) Papamanthou, and Zhong Shao. I am also a visiting researcher at the University of Innsbruck, where I am graciously hosted by Profs. Rainer Böhme and Svetlana Abramova. Previously, I was a lecturer at HUJI and received an award for my teaching. Among other honors, I was named one of the top PhD graduates of 23-24 by the CBER Forum, received the CCS Distinguished Paper award, and was generously supported by Ethereum Foundation grants, an AIANI fellowship, the Ze’ev Jabotinsky fellowship, and HUJI’s rector award for first-in-class MSc students.

Do get in touch if you want to collaborate or chat. This includes undergrads looking for cool projects.

News

Apr 6, 2024 Hao Chung, Matheus VX Ferreira, Yotam Gafni & I will give a tutorial on transaction fee mechanisms at EC24.
Mar 28, 2024 I will present Suboptimality in DeFi at the 4th Annual CBER Conference.
Feb 20, 2024 I was invited to and will participate at the 2024 Workshop on Algorithms for Learning and Economics (WALE).

Selected Papers

  1. Speculative Denial-of-Service Attacks in Ethereum
    Aviv YaishKaihua QinLiyi Zhou, and 2 more authors
    In 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24), 2024
    🏆 Awarded a Flashbots bounty
    🏆 Awarded an Ethereum Foundation bounty
  2. Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
    Aviv YaishGilad Stern, and Aviv Zohar
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2023
    🏆 Received an ACM CCS distinguished paper award
    🏆 Covered by International Business Times, CryptoSlate, Cointelegraph
  3. Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time for Your Best Interest
    Aviv YaishSaar Tochner, and Aviv Zohar
    In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, 2022
    🏆 Awarded an Ethereum Foundation bounty
Click here for my full publication list

2024

  1. Speculative Denial-of-Service Attacks in Ethereum
    Aviv YaishKaihua QinLiyi Zhou, and 2 more authors
    In 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 24), 2024
    🏆 Awarded a Flashbots bounty
    🏆 Awarded an Ethereum Foundation bounty
  2. Blockchain Censorship
    Anton WahrstätterJens ErnstbergerAviv Yaish, and 8 more authors
    In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Web Conference, 2024
  3. Suboptimality in DeFi
    Aviv YaishMaya DotanKaihua Qin, and 2 more authors
    In the 4th Annual Crypto and Blockchain Economics Research Forum Conference, 2024
  4. Incentives in the Ether: Practical Cryptocurrency Economics & Security
    Aviv Yaish
    In Companion Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Web Conference, 2024
  5. 2024
    Barriers to Collusion-resistant Transaction Fee Mechanisms
    Yotam Gafni, and Aviv Yaish
    2024
  6. 2024
    Strategic Vote Timing in Online Elections With Public Tallies
    Aviv YaishSvetlana Abramova, and Rainer Böhme
    2024
  7. 2024
    Competitive Revenue Extraction from Time-Discounted Transactions in the Semi-Myopic Regime
    Yotam Gafni, and Aviv Yaish
    2024

2023

  1. Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
    Aviv YaishGilad Stern, and Aviv Zohar
    In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2023
    🏆 Received an ACM CCS distinguished paper award
    🏆 Covered by International Business Times, CryptoSlate, Cointelegraph
  2. The Vulnerable Nature of Decentralized Governance in DeFi
    Maya DotanAviv Yaish, Hsin-Chu Yin, and 2 more authors
    In Proceedings of the 2023 Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security, 2023
  3. Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
    Yotam Gafni, and Aviv Yaish
    In 12th Annual Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society, 2023
  4. Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?
    Aviv Yaish, and Aviv Zohar
    In 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies, 2023
  5. 2023
    Airdrops: Giving Money Away Is Harder Than It Seems
    Johnnatan Messias^*, Aviv Yaish^*, and Ben Livshits
    2023
    Equal contribution denoted by ^*.

2022

  1. Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time for Your Best Interest
    Aviv YaishSaar Tochner, and Aviv Zohar
    In Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, 2022
    🏆 Awarded an Ethereum Foundation bounty
Click here for my CV

General Information

Full Name Aviv Yaish
Email aviv@avivyaish.com
Research Interests Blockchains, Economics, Security, Decentralized Finance

Research Positions

  • Sep 2024 -
    Postdoctoral Researcher
    Yale University
    • Funded by the departmental trustworthy computing postdoc gift fund
  • 2023 -
    Visiting Researcher
    University of Innsbruck
    • Partially funded by an AIANI visiting researcher fellowship
  • 2023 - 2024
    Research Consultant
    Matter Labs
  • 2023 - 2023
    Research Associate (Internship)
    Matter Labs

Education

  • 2019 -
    Direct-to-PhD, Computer Science
    The Hebrew University
    • Recipient of the merit-based 4-year Ze’ev Jabotinsky Fellowship
  • 2016 - 2018
    Master of Science (M.Sc.), Computer Science
    The Hebrew University
    • Recipient of the rector prize for ranking first in class
  • 2013 - 2016
    Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Computer Science
    The Hebrew University
    • Recipient of the merit-based "Amirim science" excellence scholarship

Grants

Honors, Awards and Funding

  • 2023
    • ACM CCS23 distinguished paper
    • Ethereum Foundation bounty
    • Flashbots vulnerability bounty
    • AIANI visiting researcher fellowship
    • AFT23 student travel funding
    • ACM CCS23 travel grant
    • iMentor23 travel funding
    • ACM EC23 student travel funding
    • Devconnect academic sponsorship (awarded, could not participate)
    • Fenbushi Capital Research House Program (awarded, could not participate)
    • HUJI's Diversity Unit's March 23 travel scholarship for outstanding PhD students
    • HUJI's Diversity Unit's September 23 travel scholarship for outstanding PhD students
  • 2022
    • HUJI Authority for Research Students' travel grant
    • Vaad Edat Hasfaradim’s scholarship
  • 2021
    • Award for excellence in teaching
    • Ethereum Foundation bounty (awarded, didn't collect)
  • 2020
    • Ranked 9th out of 111 teaching staff in HUJI's CS department
  • 2019
    • Ze’ev Jabotinsky 4 year merit-based fellowship
    • Zcash Foundation Zcon1 travel scholarship
  • 2018
    • HUJI Rector's prize for ranking first in MSc class
    • HUJI Dean's award for outstanding academic achievements
  • 2016
    • First place at HUJI's annual machine learning hackathon
  • 2013
    • Amirim science excellence scholarship for undergraduates
  • 2007
    • Ranked in the 99th percentile in Israel's SAT equivalent (psychometric exam)

Publications

Conference Papers

Papers

Teaching

  • 2018 - 2024
    System Introduction (67100), creator and lecturer
    The Hebrew University
    • Sole lecturer and creator, taught an average of 850 students/year
  • 2017 - 2023
    From NAND to Tetris (67925/6), lecturer
    The Hebrew University
    • Sole lecturer, managed a team of 7 TAs, taught an average of 500+ students/year
  • 2021
    Award for excellence in teaching
    The Hebrew University
  • 2020
    Introduction to Cryptocurrencies (67513), co-creator and TA
    The Hebrew University
  • 2020
    Ranked 9th out of 111 teaching staff in the CS department
    The Hebrew University

Undergraduate Project Supervision

  • 2022 - 2023
    Nimrod Rak
    The Hebrew University
    • Title: Simulating cryptocurrency networks using real clients
  • 2022 - 2022
    Eytan Tsytkin
    The Hebrew University
    • Title: Application of Big Data methods to cryptocurrencies
  • 2021 - 2022
    Imri Paran
    The Hebrew University
    • Title: An exploration of Bitcoin's attack surface

Service

  • 2024
    • Journal referee. ACM TEAC, INFORMS MOR
    • Program committee. MARBLE, EC, AFT
  • 2023
    • Program committee. CCS DeFi Workshop
    • In-person volunteer. EC
    • Reviewer. CCS, EC, FC, SODA, WWW, WEIS, FC DeFi Workshop
  • 2022
    • Reviewer. S&P, SODA, WWW
  • 2020
    • Reviewer. AFT

Talks

  • Incentives in the Ether: Practical Cryptocurrency Economics & Security
  • Speculative Denial-of-Service Attacks in Ethereum
  • Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
    • The Annual Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society, 2023
  • Supoptimality in DeFi
    • UCSB-ECON DeFi Seminar (invited), 2024
    • The Science of Decentralized Financial Stability Workshop (invited), 2023
    • Schloss Dagstuhl seminar 22421 (invited), 2022
  • Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
  • Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time For Your Best Interest
  • Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?

Other

  • 2023
    Received Melabev's certificate of appreciation for outstanding volunteer services
    Melabev
  • 2020 - 2022
    Volunteered with elderly people with dementia
    Melabev