CV

General Information

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

Publications

  • 2023
    Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
    Aviv Yaish, Gilad Stern, Aviv Zohar
    • In ACM Conference on Computer & Communications Security (CCS23)
  • 2023
    Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?
    Aviv Yaish, Aviv Zohar
    • In Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT23)
  • 2023
    The Vulnerable Nature of Decentralized Governance in DeFi
    Maya Dotan, Aviv Yaish, Hsin-Chu Yin, Eytan Tsytkin, Aviv Zohar
    • In ACM CCS Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security (DeFi23)
  • 2022
    Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time for Your Best Interest
    Aviv Yaish, Saar Tochner, Aviv Zohar
    • In ACM Conference on Economics & Computation (EC22)
    • Awarded a bug bounty by the Ethereum Foundation

Preprints

  • 2023
    Speculative Denial-of-Service Attacks in Ethereum
    Aviv Yaish, Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Aviv Zohar, Arthur Gervais
    • Funded by an Ethereum Foundation academic grant
    • Awarded a bug bounty by the Ethereum Foundation
    • Awarded a bug bounty by Flashbots
  • 2023
    Blockchain Censorship
    Anton Wahrstätter, Jens Ernstberger, Aviv Yaish, Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Taro Tsuchiya, Sebastian Steinhorst, Davor Svetinovic, Nicolas Christin, Mikolaj Barczentewicz, Arthur Gervais
    • Funded by an Ethereum Foundation academic grant
  • 2023
    Suboptimality in DeFi
    Aviv Yaish, Maya Dotan, Kaihua Qin, Aviv Zohar, Arthur Gervais
    • Presented at Schloss Dagstuhl seminar 22421 (invited talk)
    • Presented at The Science of Decentralized Financial Stability Workshop (invited talk)
  • 2022
    Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
    Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
    • Presented at Technion's Industrial Engineering & Management Research Day
    • Presented at Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society

Honors, Awards and Funding

  • 2023
  • 2022
    • HUJI Authority for Research Students' travel grant
    • Vaad Edat Hasfaradim’s scholarship
  • 2021
    • Award for excellence in HUJI's teaching evaluation survey
    • Ethereum Foundation bug bounty (awarded, did not 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
  • 2011
    • Israeli Defense Forces certificate of appreciation
  • 2010
    • Israeli Defense Forces department excellence award
  • 2007
    • Ranked in the 99th percentile in Israel's SAT equivalent (psychometric exam)

Research Positions

  • 2023 - 2023
    Research Associate (Internship)
    Matter Labs
  • 2023 -
    Visiting Researcher
    University of Innsbruck
    • Funded by an AIANI visiting researcher fellowship

Education

  • 2019 -
    PhD candidate
    The Hebrew University
    • On the direct-to-PhD track
    • 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
    • Recipient of the dean's prize for outstanding academic achievements
  • 2013 - 2016
    Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), Computer Science
    The Hebrew University
    • Recipient of the merit-based "Amirim science" excellence scholarship

Service

  • 2023
    • Program committee. ACM DeFi23 Workshop.
    • In-person volunteer. ACM EC23.
    • Reviewer. ACM CCS23, ACM EC23, FC23 DeFi Workshop, WEIS23.
  • 2022
    • Reviewer. IEEE S&P22, ACM WWW23, ACM-SIAM SODA23.
  • 2020
    • Reviewer. ACM AFT20.

Teaching

  • 2018 -
    System Introduction (67100), creator and lecturer
    The Hebrew University
    • Sole lecturer and creator, course averages 850 students/year
  • 2017 - 2023
    From NAND to Tetris (67925/6), lecturer
    The Hebrew University
    • Sole lecturer, managed a team of 7 TAs, course averages 500 students/year
  • 2020
    Introduction to Cryptocurrencies (67513), co-creator and TA
    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

Talks

  • 2023
    The Science of Decentralized Financial Stability Workshop (invited)
    Suboptimality in DeFi
  • 2023
    The Annual Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society
    Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
  • 2023
    Innsbruck University's Department of Computer Science's seminar (invited)
    Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
  • 2023
    Innsbruck University's Security and Privacy Lab (invited)
    Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time For Your Best Interest
  • 2022
    HUJI's Distributed Algorithms, Networking and Security Seminar (invited)
    Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
  • 2022
    The Crypto Economics Security Conference
    Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
  • 2022
    The Crypto Economics Security Conference
    Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?
  • 2022
    Schloss Dagstuhl seminar 22421 (invited)
    Supoptimality in DeFi
  • 2022
    The Federmann Cyber Security Center's Cyber Retreat (invited)
    Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
  • 2022
    Chaincode Labs' Research Seminar (invited)
    Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time For Your Best Interest
  • 2022
    The 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation
    Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time For Your Best Interest
  • 2021
    First Israeli Blockchain Research Day (invited)
    Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?
  • 2019
    The Hebrew University's Cryptocurrencies Seminar (invited)
    Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?

Other

  • 2020-2022
    Volunteered with elderly people with dementia
    Melabev