Kaihua Qin

kaihua at qin.ac

I’m a Ph.D. student at Imperial College London, where I am very fortunate to be supervised by Dr. Arthur Gervais. I also work closely with Prof. Dawn Song at UC Berkeley RDI and Liyi Zhou at Imperial College London.

My academic interests center around designing and building decentralized systems that are secure, stable, and incentive-compatible. The inherent complexity of real-world decentralized systems, with their interdependent and interacting layers, poses a fascinating challenge in achieving this objective. My primary focus is on permissionless blockchains and decentralized finance (DeFi). In my research, I aim to systematically measure and quantify various problems encountered in the rapidly evolving blockchain and DeFi ecosystems. I also strive to develop real-time offensive and defensive solutions by utilizing advanced program analysis techniques to enhance smart contract security. Furthermore, I intend to devise innovative financial primitives that minimize the systemic risks of DeFi. My research is informed by the fields of security, program analysis, measurement, and finance. I am also actively exploring the application of machine learning and game theory to my research pursuits.

News

Jan 28, 2023	Our paper titled “The Blockchain Imitation Game” has been accepted at Usenix Security 2023!
Jan 19, 2023	Our paper on mitigating DeFi liquidations has been accepted at FC 2023!

Selected Publications

Sec 23

The blockchain imitation game

Kaihua Qin, Stefanos Chaliasos, Liyi Zhou, Benjamin Livshits, Dawn Song, and Arthur Gervais

In 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23) 2023

arXiv Bib Blog

🏛️ Also presented at the Science of Blockchain Conference 2023 (SBC’23)

@inproceedings{qin2023blockchain,
  title = {The blockchain imitation game},
  author = {Qin, Kaihua and Chaliasos, Stefanos and Zhou, Liyi and Livshits, Benjamin and Song, Dawn and Gervais, Arthur},
  booktitle = {32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23)},
  year = {2023},
  pages = {3961--3978},
}

FC 23

Mitigating decentralized finance liquidations with reversible call options

Kaihua Qin, Jens Ernstberger, Liyi Zhou, Philipp Jovanovic, and Arthur Gervais

In International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2023

arXiv
SP 22
Quantifying blockchain extractable value: How dark is the forest?

Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, and Arthur Gervais

In 2022 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP) 2022

arXiv Bib

🏛️ Also presented at the Science of Blockchain Conference 2022 (SBC’22) and the Crypto Economics Security Conference 2022 (CESC’22)

🥇 Normalized Top-100 Security Papers

🏆 Cybersecurity Award 2023 – Best Practical Paper
@inproceedings{qin2022quantifying, title = {Quantifying blockchain extractable value: How dark is the forest?}, author = {Qin, Kaihua and Zhou, Liyi and Gervais, Arthur}, booktitle = {2022 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP)}, pages = {198--214}, year = {2022}, organization = {IEEE} }

IMC 21

An empirical study of defi liquidations: Incentives, risks, and instabilities

Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Pablo Gamito, Philipp Jovanovic, and Arthur Gervais

In Proceedings of the 21st ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2021

arXiv Bib

🏛️ Also presented at the Science of Blockchain Conference 2022 (SBC’22)

@inproceedings{qin2021empirical,
  title = {An empirical study of defi liquidations: Incentives, risks, and instabilities},
  author = {Qin, Kaihua and Zhou, Liyi and Gamito, Pablo and Jovanovic, Philipp and Gervais, Arthur},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 21st ACM Internet Measurement Conference},
  pages = {336--350},
  year = {2021}
}

FC 21

Attacking the defi ecosystem with flash loans for fun and profit

Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Benjamin Livshits, and Arthur Gervais

In International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2021

arXiv Bib Blog

@inproceedings{qin2021attacking,
  title = {Attacking the defi ecosystem with flash loans for fun and profit},
  author = {Qin, Kaihua and Zhou, Liyi and Livshits, Benjamin and Gervais, Arthur},
  booktitle = {International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security},
  pages = {3--32},
  year = {2021},
  organization = {Springer}
}