CV

General Information

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

Honors, Awards and Grants

  • 2023
    EC23 student travel grant
  • 2023
    An academic grant from the Ethereum Foundation
  • 2023
    The Hebrew University's Diversity Unit's travel grant for outstanding PhD students
  • 2023
    The Austria-Israel Academic Network Innsbruck's (AIANI) visiting researcher fellowship
  • 2022
    Vaad Edat Hasfaradim’s scholarship
  • 2022
    The Hebrew University's Authority for Research Students' travel grant
  • 2021
    Award for excellence in the Hebrew University's teaching evaluation survey
  • 2021
    The Ethereum Foundation's bug bounty prize
  • 2020
    Ranked 9th out of 111 teaching staff in The Hebrew University's CS department
  • 2019
    The Ze’ev Jabotinsky Fellowship for Applied and Engineering Science for Doctoral Students, a 4 year merit-based fellowship for direct-to-PhD students
  • 2019
    The Zcash Foundation's Zcon1 travel grant
  • 2018
    The Hebrew University's Rector award and one-year grant for MSc students, for ranking first among fellow class-mates
  • 2018
    The Hebrew University's Dean award and prize for outstanding academic achievements
  • 2016
    First place at The Hebrew University's annual machine learning hackathon
  • 2013
    Received the merit-based "Amirim science" excellence scholarship for undergraduates
  • 2011
    Israeli Defense Forces excellence award, for the development of a new mission-critical system
  • 2010
    Israeli Defense Forces excellence award, for the advancement of my department
  • 2007
    Ranked in the 99th percentile in Israel's SAT equivalent (the psychometric exam)

Papers

  • 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
    • Under submission.
  • 2022
    Suboptimality in DeFi
    Aviv Yaish, Maya Dotan, Kaihua Qin, Aviv Zohar, Arthur Gervais
    • Under submission.
    • Presented at Schloss Dagstuhl seminar 22421, Security of Decentralized Financial Technologies.
  • 2022
    Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
    Yotam Gafni, Aviv Yaish
    • Under submission.
    • Accepted to the 12th Annual Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society.
    • Presented at The Technion's Industrial Engineering & Management Research Day 22.
    • Presented at the 12th Annual Conference of the Israeli Chapter of the Game Theory Society.
  • 2022
    Uncle Maker: (Time)Stamping Out The Competition in Ethereum
    Aviv Yaish, Gilad Stern, Aviv Zohar
  • 2022
    Blockchain Stretching & Squeezing: Manipulating Time for Your Best Interest
    Aviv Yaish, Saar Tochner, Aviv Zohar
    • Published in Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC22).
    • Presented at The 23rd ACM Conference on Economics and Computation.
    • Presented at Chaincode Labs' Research Seminar.
    • Presented at Innsbruck University's Security and Privacy Lab.
  • 2020
    Correct Cryptocurrency ASIC Pricing: Are Miners Overpaying?
    Aviv Yaish, Aviv Zohar

Talks

  • 2023
    The 12th 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
    The Hebrew University'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: Security of Decentralized Financial Technologies (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?

Posters

  • 2022
    The Technion's Industrial Engineering & Management Research Day
    Greedy Transaction Fee Mechanisms for (Non-)myopic Miners
  • 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?

Teaching

  • 2021
    Recipient of the award for excellence in teaching
    The Hebrew University
  • 2020
    Ranked 9th out of 111 teaching staff in the CS department
    The Hebrew University
  • 2020
    Introduction to Cryptocurrencies (67513), co-creator and TA
    The Hebrew University
    • A graduate course which covers the theory and practice of cryptocurrencies, averaging 50 students per semester.
    • Provided ideas and hands-on guidance for ~20 final projects.
  • 2018 -
    System Introduction (67100), creator and lecturer
    The Hebrew University
    • An undergraduate first year computer science MOOC covering basic to advanced usage of the command-line shell, taken by 850 students a year.
  • 2017 - 2023
    From NAND to Tetris (67925/6), lecturer
    The Hebrew University
    • An undergraduate second year computer science course covering the construction of a fully-functioning computer, averaging 600 students per semester. Managed a team of 7 TAs.

Research Positions

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
    • Magna cum laude (97.55 out of 100)
    • 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 for undergraduates
    • Won first place at The Hebrew University's annual machine learning undergraduate hackathon

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 -
    Imri Paran
    The Hebrew University
    • Title: An exploration of Bitcoin's attack surface

Service

  • 2023
    Program Committee
    ACM CCS Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security (DeFi)
  • 2023
    Reviewer
    Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (WEIS)
  • 2023
    Reviewer
    Workshop on Decentralized Finance, co-held with FC23
  • 2023
    Reviewer
    ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC)
  • 2023
    Reviewer
    ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS)
  • 2022
    Reviewer
    IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P)
  • 2022
    Reviewer
    ACM International World Wide Web Conference (WWW)
  • 2022
    Reviewer
    ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA)
  • 2020
    Reviewer
    ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT)

Other

  • 2020-2022
    Volunteer
    Melabev
    • Volunteered with elderly people with dementia. I accompanied groups to the Israeli Museum on a weekly basis, and have participated in the “Kesher” telephone program by calling a group of elderly people throughout the week. In addition, I translated documents from Hebrew to English.