Publications

Bibliometrics can be found in Google Scholar.

2026

  • Perils of Parallelism: Transaction Fee Mechanisms under Execution Uncertainty
    Sarisht Wadhwa (Duke University), Aviv Yaish (Yale University, IC3, Complexity Science Hub Vienna), Fan Zhang (Yale University, IC3), Kartik Nayak (Duke University). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Parallel execution complicates fee design because users and schedulers can strategically exploit how the mechanism prices parallelism and execution uncertainty. This paper formalizes those tradeoffs and gives fee mechanisms that hit the best achievable boundary.

    Resources
    ePrint
  • Geographical Centralization Resilience in Ethereum's Block-Building Paradigms
    Sen Yang, Burak Öz, Fei Wu, Fan Zhang. In ACM SIGMETRICS 2026.
    TL;DR by AI

    Ethereum's block-building paradigms cause geographic centralization through latency incentives, as shown via agent-based simulations.

    Highlights
    • Recipient of Flashbots Research Gift
    Resources
    arXiv Demo Blog Post (by Sen)
  • Blockspace Under Pressure: An Analysis of Spam MEV on High-Throughput Blockchains
    Wenhao Wang, Aditya Saraf, Lioba Heimbach, Kushal Babel, Fan Zhang. In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Cheap, high-throughput chains invite large volumes of speculative MEV traffic that mostly fails but still consumes blockspace and execution resources. This paper models that spam equilibrium and shows how capacity and fee design affect how much spam the chain attracts.

    Resources
    arXiv Blog by Lioba Heimbach
  • Cirrus: Performant and Accountable Distributed SNARK
    Wenhao Wang (Yale University), Fangyan Shi (Tsinghua University), Dani Vilardell (Cornell University), Fan Zhang (Yale University). In Network and Distributed System Security (2026).
    TL;DR by AI

    Cirrus is a distributed SNARK protocol achieving scalable, accountable proof generation with universal trusted setup.

    Highlights
    • Recipient of Ethereum ZK Fellowship
    Resources
    NDSS ePrint NDSS Talk (by Wenhao) Code
  • Boost+: Equitable, Incentive-Compatible Block Building
    Mengqian Zhang, Sen Yang (Yale University), Kartik Nayak (Duke University), Fan Zhang (Yale University). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    MEV-Boost centralizes Ethereum block building because vertically integrated actors get better access and stronger incentives than everyone else. Boost+ redesigns the market so transaction collection and ordering are separated, giving more equal access while preserving incentive compatibility.

    Publicity
    • Invited talk at DeCenter Seminar, Princeton, NJ. PPTX
    Resources
    arXiv
  • Censorship Resistance vs Throughput in Multi-Proposer BFT Protocols
    Fatima Elsheimy, Ioannis Kaklamanis, Sarisht Wadhwa, Charalampos Papamanthou, Fan Zhang. In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Multi-proposer BFT systems cannot maximize both censorship resistance and throughput at the same time. This paper formalizes that tradeoff and gives assignment protocols that let designers choose better points on the spectrum.

    Highlights
    • Awarded Ethereum Academic Grant
    Resources
    ePrint
  • Dinocchio: Distributed Prover for Ring Arithmetic
    Katerina Sotiraki (Yale University), Yunhao Wang (Yale University), Fan Zhang (Yale University). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Dinocchio is a distributed SNARK for ring arithmetics. It distributes the prover while keeping proof size and verification time constant. It targets workloads from lattice cryptography and FHE that are inefficient to express over ordinary finite-field SNARKs.

    Resources
    ePrint

2025

  • Verifiable Aggregate Receipts with Applications to User Engagement Auditing
    Ioannis Kaklamanis, Wenhao Wang (Yale University, IC3), Harjasleen Malvai (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IC3), Fan Zhang (Yale University, IC3). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    VAR lets a service prove how many users it served without revealing which users those were. The paper builds efficient receipt-based protocols for privacy-preserving audits that still prevent inflated engagement claims.

    Publicity
    Resources
    ePrint Project Website
  • RediSwap: MEV Redistribution Mechanism for CFMMs
    Mengqian Zhang, Sen Yang, Fan Zhang. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security (DeFi ‘25).
    TL;DR by AI

    RediSwap is a CFMM with an MEV-redistribution mechanism to mitigate exploitation and refund value to participants.

    Resources
    arXiv ACM DL 
    @inproceedings{10.1145/3733815.3764044,
    author = {Zhang, Mengqian and Yang, Sen and Zhang, Fan},
    title = {RediSwap: MEV Redistribution Mechanism for CFMMs},
    year = {2025},
    isbn = {9798400719042},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3733815.3764044},
    doi = {10.1145/3733815.3764044},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2025 Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security},
    pages = {27–36},
    numpages = {10},
    keywords = {Decentralized Finance, MEV Redistribution, Mechanism Design},
    series = {DeFi '25}
}
  • AGORA: Open More and Trust Less in Binary Verification Service
    Hongbo Chen, Quan Zhou, Sen Yang, Xing Han, Fan Zhang, Danfeng Zhang, Xiaofeng Wang. In ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA 2025).
    TL;DR by AI

    AGORA enables open and trustworthy binary verification by delegating tasks and using TEEs with blockchain for auditability.

    Resources
    arXiv ACM DL 
    @article{10.1145/3763099,
    author = {Chen, Hongbo and Zhou, Quan and Yang, Sen and Dang, Sixuan and Han, Xing and Zhang, Danfeng and Zhang, Fan and Wang, XiaoFeng},
    title = {Agora: Trust Less and Open More in Verification for Confidential Computing},
    year = {2025},
    issue_date = {October 2025},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    address = {New York, NY, USA},
    volume = {9},
    number = {OOPSLA2},
    url = {https://doi-org.yale.idm.oclc.org/10.1145/3763099},
    doi = {10.1145/3763099},
    journal = {Proc. ACM Program. Lang.},
    month = oct,
    articleno = {321},
    numpages = {28},
    keywords = {Program verification, confidential computing, smart contract, static analysis, trusted computing base}
}
  • Qelect: Lattice-based Single Secret Leader Election Made Practical
    Yunhao Wang, Fan Zhang (Yale University). In USENIX Security 2025.
    TL;DR by AI

    Qelect introduces a lattice-based, constant-round post-quantum SSLE protocol with practical optimizations for significant speed improvements.

    Resources
    ePrint USENIX Code 
    @inproceedings{DBLP:conf/uss/WangZ25,
author       = {Yunhao Wang and
                Fan Zhang},
editor       = {Lujo Bauer and
                Giancarlo Pellegrino},
title        = {Qelect: Lattice-based Single Secret Leader Election Made Practical},
booktitle    = {34th {USENIX} Security Symposium, {USENIX} Security 2025, Seattle,
                WA, USA, August 13-15, 2025},
pages        = {8461--8480},
publisher    = {{USENIX} Association},
year         = {2025},
url          = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity25/presentation/wang-yunhao},
timestamp    = {Fri, 31 Oct 2025 16:17:35 +0100},
biburl       = {https://dblp.org/rec/conf/uss/WangZ25.bib},
bibsource    = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org}
}
  • ZIPNet: Low-bandwidth anonymous broadcast from (dis)Trusted Execution Environments
    Michael Rosenberg, Maurice Shih, Zhenyu Zhao, Rui Wang, Ian Miers, and Fan Zhang. In Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2025).
    TL;DR by AI

    ZIPNet enables scalable, low-bandwidth anonymous broadcast by minimizing server costs via untrusted message aggregation.

    Highlights
    Publicity
    • Invited talk at NoConsensus.wtf 2025 @ SBC, Berkeley, CA.
    Resources
    ePrint Code 
    @article{DBLP:journals/popets/RosenbergSZWMZ25,
author       = {Michael Rosenberg and
                Maurice Shih and
                Zhenyu Zhao and
                Rui Wang and
                Ian Miers and
                Fan Zhang},
title        = {ZIPNet: Low-bandwidth anonymous broadcast from (dis)Trusted Execution
                Environments},
journal      = {Proc. Priv. Enhancing Technol.},
volume       = {2025},
number       = {2},
pages        = {211--225},
year         = {2025},
url          = {https://doi.org/10.56553/popets-2025-0058},
doi          = {10.56553/POPETS-2025-0058},
timestamp    = {Mon, 12 May 2025 17:34:54 +0200},
biburl       = {https://dblp.org/rec/journals/popets/RosenbergSZWMZ25.bib},
bibsource    = {dblp computer science bibliography, https://dblp.org}
}
  • Decentralization of Ethereum's Builder Market
    Sen Yang, Kartik Nayak, Fan Zhang. In IEEE S&P 2025.
    TL;DR by AI

    Empirical analysis shows builder centralization in Ethereum harms decentralization and necessitates supply chain changes.

    Highlights
    Publicity
    • Guest lecture at Berkeley DeFi MOOC.
    • Invited talk at CBER Crafting the Cryptoeconomy Conference. PPTX
    • Invited talk at Decentralized Science (DeSci) Seminar, University of Sydney (Remote).
    • Invited talk at Science of Blockchain Conference 2024 (SBC'24), New York, NY. Video
    • Invited talk at IC3 Blockchain Camp, New York, NY.
    • Invited talk at EC24 Workshop on Blockchains and Decentralized Finance.
    Resources
    arXiv Code 
    @inproceedings{yangDecentralizationEthereumsBuilder2025,
  title = {Decentralization of {{Ethereum}}'s {{Builder Market}}},
  author = {Yang, Sen and Nayak, Kartik and Zhang, Fan},
  date = {2025-05-01},
  pages = {1512--1530},
  publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
  doi = {10.1109/SP61157.2025.00157},
  url = {https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/sp/2025/223600b456/26hiUkhZyfK},
  urldate = {2025-06-19},
  eventtitle = {2025 {{IEEE Symposium}} on {{Security}} and {{Privacy}} ({{SP}})},
  isbn = {979-8-3315-2236-0},
  langid = {english}
}
  • Insecurity Through Obscurity: Veiled Vulnerabilities in Closed-Source Contracts
    Sen Yang, Kaihua Qin, Aviv Yaish,Fan Zhang. In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Obfuscation hides vulnerabilities in smart contracts, as SKANF detects exploits in MEV bots causing major losses.

    Highlights
    Resources
    arXiv Blog Post (by Sen)
  • Prooφ: A ZKP Market Mechanism
    Wenhao Wang, Lulu Zhou, Aviv Yaish, Fan Zhang, Ben Fisch, Benjamin Livshits. In Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC 2025).
    TL;DR by AI

    Designing a transaction fee mechanism for prover markets in ZK-Rollups to ensure efficiency and resist collusion.

    • Presented at ZK Summit 11 (Athens), Tokenomics'24 (Hong Kong), FC'25 (Japan), TLDR'25, IC3 Blockchain Camp'25
    Resources
    arXiv Wenhao's talk at ZK Summit 11
  • Anonymous Self-Credentials and their Application to Single-Sign-On
    Jayamine Alupotha, Mariarosaria Barbaraci (University of Bern), Ioannis Kaklamanis (Yale University), Abhimanyu Rawat (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Christian Cachin (University of Bern), Fan Zhang (Yale University). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Proposes Anonymous Self-Credentials for privacy-preserving and Sybil-resistant single sign-on without trusted providers.

    Resources
    ePrint
  • AUCIL: An Inclusion List Design for Rational Parties
    Sarisht Wadhwa (Duke University), Julian Ma, Thomas Thiery, Barnabe Monnot, Luca Zanolini (Ethereum Foundation), Fan Zhang (Yale University), Kartik Nayak (Duke University). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    Introduces a formal inclusion list design using auction-based mechanisms to enhance censorship resistance in blockchains with rational proposers.

    Resources
    ePrint Sarisht's talk at MEV-SBC'25
  • CRATE: Cross-Rollup Atomic Transaction Execution
    Ioannis Kaklamanis, Fan Zhang (Yale University). In submission.
    TL;DR by AI

    CRATE enables secure, atomic cross-rollup transaction execution with formal guarantees and practical implementation.

    Resources
    arXiv

2024

2023

2022

2021

  • CanDID: Can-Do Decentralized Identity with Legacy Compatibility, Sybil-Resistance, and Accountability
    D. Maram, H. Malvai, F. Zhang, N. Jean-Louis, A. Frolov, T. Kell, T. Lobban, C. Moy, A. Juels, and A. Miller. In IEEE S&P 2021.
    TL;DR by AI

    CanDID is a decentralized identity platform offering legacy compatibility, Sybil-resistance, and privacy-preserving accountability.

    Publicity
    • Invited talk at The West Lake Forum on Network Security, Online.
    • Invited talk at Annual Convention of Chinese Institute of Engineers - Greater New York Chapter.
    • Invited talk at Empire Hacking (organized by Trail of Bits).
    Resources
    ePrint

2020

2019

2017

2016

2015