About Me

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Warwick. Before joining Warwick, I was with Yale University, hosted by Prof. Fan Zhang and Prof. Zhong Shao.

I earned my PhD at Imperial College London under the supervision of Prof. Arthur Gervais. Prior to that, I received my MSc from Imperial College London and my BE from Southeast University.

I co-founded Decentralized Intelligence (D23E), where we advance decentralization and intelligence.

Interested in working with me?

I am always looking for self-motivated students. If you are interested, please reach out with your CV and a brief explanation of why you are a good fit at kaihua[at]qin.ac.

Research Interests

Decentralized Systems

Securing blockchains and decentralized systems, focusing on information security, distributed computing, and applied cryptography.

Cryptoeconomics

Using game theory, mechanism design, and causal inference to align incentives and ensure resilient decentralized finance.

AI for Security

Applying AI to enhance cybersecurity, including automating threat detection and vulnerability management.

Security of AI

Safeguarding machine learning models against adversarial attacks, privacy breaches, and other threats.

Publications

Full list available on Google Scholar.

2025
  • ISSTA
    Enhancing Smart Contract Security Analysis with Execution Property Graphs
    Kaihua Qin, Zhe Ye, Zhun Wang, Weilin Li, Liyi Zhou, Chao Zhang, Dawn Song, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • SIGMETRICS
    Blockchain Amplification Attack
    Taro Tsuchiya, Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Arthur Gervais, Nicolas Christin
    arXiv
  • S&P
    Security Perceptions of Users in Stablecoins: Advantages and Risks within the Cryptocurrency Ecosystem
    Maggie Yongqi Guan, Yaman Yu, Tanusree Sharma, Molly Zhuangtong Huang, Kaihua Qin, Yang Wang, Kanye Ye Wang
    ePrint
2024
  • AFT
    DeFiAligner: Leveraging Symbolic Analysis and Large Language Models for Inconsistency Detection in Decentralized Finance
    Rundong Gan, Liyi Zhou, Le Wang, Kaihua Qin, Xiaodong Lin
  • ICBC
    What Drives the (In) stability of a Stablecoin?
    Yujin Potter, Kornrapat Pongmala, Kaihua Qin, Ariah Klages-Mundt, Philipp Jovanovic, Christine Parlour, Arthur Gervais, Dawn Song
    arXiv
  • Security
    Speculative Denial-of-Service Attacks In Ethereum
    Aviv Yaish, Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Aviv Zohar, Arthur Gervais
    ePrint
  • WWW
    Blockchain censorship
    Anton Wahrstätter, Jens Ernstberger, Aviv Yaish, Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Taro Tsuchiya, Sebastian Steinhorst, Davor Svetinovic, Nicolas Christin, Mikolaj Barczentewicz, others
    arXiv
2023
  • Security
    The blockchain imitation game
    Kaihua Qin, Stefanos Chaliasos, Liyi Zhou, Benjamin Livshits, Dawn Song, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv Blog
  • FC
    Mitigating decentralized finance liquidations with reversible call options
    Kaihua Qin, Jens Ernstberger, Liyi Zhou, Philipp Jovanovic, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • WWW
    On how zero-knowledge proof blockchain mixers improve, and worsen user privacy
    Zhipeng Wang, Stefanos Chaliasos, Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Lifeng Gao, Pascal Berrang, Benjamin Livshits, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • S&P
    Sok: Decentralized finance (defi) attacks
    Liyi Zhou, Xihan Xiong, Jens Ernstberger, Stefanos Chaliasos, Zhipeng Wang, Ye Wang, Kaihua Qin, Roger Wattenhofer, Dawn Song, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
2022
  • S&P
    Quantifying blockchain extractable value: How dark is the forest?
    Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • FC
    Speculative multipliers on defi: Quantifying on-chain leverage risks
    Zhipeng Wang, Kaihua Qin, Duc Vu Minh, Arthur Gervais
2021
  • IMC
    An empirical study of defi liquidations: Incentives, risks, and instabilities
    Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Pablo Gamito, Philipp Jovanovic, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • S&P
    High-frequency trading on decentralized on-chain exchanges
    Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Christof Ferreira Torres, Duc V Le, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • S&P
    On the just-in-time discovery of profit-generating transactions in defi protocols
    Liyi Zhou, Kaihua Qin, Antoine Cully, Benjamin Livshits, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv
  • FC
    Attacking the defi ecosystem with flash loans for fun and profit
    Kaihua Qin, Liyi Zhou, Benjamin Livshits, Arthur Gervais
    arXiv Blog