Rick Rujia Li
Rujia Li is a Postdoctoral Fellow, Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar at Institute for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University, collaborating with Dr. Sisi Duan. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Birmingham (Joint Program with SUSTech), advised by Dr.David Galindo, Dr.Qi Wang and Prof. Mark Ryan.
Research Interests
His research focuses on Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts (PPSCs), with a particular emphasis on
improving the (economic-level and system-level) security of consensus algorithms and privacy-preserving technologies that underpin the design and implementation of PPSCs.
Latest News
- [2025-08] BunnyFinder: Finding Incentive Flaws for Ethereum Consensus is accepted by NDSS 2026.
- [2025-06] Does Finality Gadget Finalize Your Block? A Case Study of Binance Consensus is accepted by USENIX Security 2025.
- [2025-04] Towards Efficient and Practical Multi-party Computation under Inconsistent Trust in TEEs is accepted by IEEE S&P 2025.
- [2025-01] Available Attestation: Towards a Reorg-Resilient Solution for Ethereum Proof-of-Stake is accepted by USENIX Security 2025.
- [2025-01] Accountable Decryption made Formal and Practical is accepted by IEEE TIFS 2025.
- [2024-10] Bringing Smart Contract Confidentiality via Trusted Hardware: Fact and Fiction is accepted by IEEE TIFS 2024.
- [2024-03] Max Attestation Matters: Making Honest Parties Lose Their Incentives in Ethereum PoS is accepted by USENIX Security 2024.
- [2023-01] Time-manipulation Attack: Breaking Fairness against Proof of Authority Aura is accepted by WWW 2023.
Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts
Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts (PPSCs) are designed to keep the data and transactions confidential while ensuring the secure execution of transactions on the blockchain. As shown in the diagram below, PPSCs are built on two main components: a consensus algorithm and privacy-preserving technology.
His research focuses on improving the security of consensus algorithms
and privacy-preserving technologies that underpin the design and implementation of PPSCs.
Research Areas
Hybrid Consensus Algorithm (GHOST + BFT)
Analyzing vulnerabilities in state-of-the-art hybrid consensus mechanisms and propose enhanced, secure alternatives.
- 2026 Solana Consensus Analysis (Ongoing Work)
- 2025 Binance PoSA Attack Analysis (USENIX Security'25)
- 2024 Ethereum PoS Attack Remediation (USENIX Security'25)
- 2023 Ethereum PoS Attack Analysis (USENIX Security'24, USENIX Security'25 Poster, NDSS'26)
- 2022 PoA Algorithm Vulnerabilities (WWW'23, ASIACCS'22, ICBC'22)
- 2021 BFT Attack Framework (ACM DLT'22)
- 2020 Weak Consensus Algorithm (INFOCOM'21, NDSS Poster'21)
Hybrid Privacy-Preserving Technology (TEE + Cryptography)
Integrating Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) with cryptographic techniques to enhance smart contract privacy.
- 2026 Practical PPSC using TEE and FE (Ongoing Work)
- 2025 Enhancing the Security of TEE Attestation (Ongoing Work)
- 2024 Practical Multi-Party Computation using TEE ( IEEE S&P 2025)
- 2023 Secure Blockchain Mempool using TEE (Ongoing Work)
- 2023 Making Decryption Accountable using TEE (IEEE TIFS'25)
- 2022 Mechanism of Confidential Smart Contracts (IEEE TIFS'24, PETS'22, ISC'20, CBT'19)
Industry Impact
The outcomes of our PPSCs research (i.e., prototypes and patents) have been adopted by several organizations to enhance the privacy and security of their products and services, including, but not limited to:
Biography
Bachelor
WHU
2009WHU
R&D Eng
SG EPRI
2013SG EPRI
Secure Arch Asst
SG IT
2014SG IT
Master
UoB
2016UoB
Intern
UoB IC
2017UoB IC
PhD
UoB
2018UoB
Team Leader
COCRYPTO
2022COCRYPTO
Visiting Scholar
THU
2022THU
Postdoc
THU
2023THU
Position
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Tsinghua University (01/2023 — now)
- Visiting Scholar, Tsinghua University (08/2022 — 12/2022)
- Research Team Leader, COCRYTO LAB, SUSTech (03/2022 — 07/2022)
- Internship, University of Birmingham Innovation Centre (06/2017 — 09/2017)
- Secure Architect Assistant, State Grid Information & Telecommunication (12/2014 — 08/2016)
- R & D Engineer, State Grid Electric Power Research Institute (04/2013 — 11/2014)
Education
- Ph.D. in Computer Science (CS), University of Birmingham (01/2018 — 03/2022)
- Master of Advanced CS, University of Birmingham (09/2016 — 01/2018)
- Double Bachelor in Business Administration and CS, Wuhan University (09/2009 — 07/2013)
Honours/Certification
- Shuimu Tsinghua Scholar, Tsinghua University (2023 — 2024)
- ITIC People's Choice Awards 2017, ITIC Committee (05/2017)
- Oracle Certified Professional, Oracle University (01/2015)
- Gold Award in Int’l Soft China 2014, National Development and Reform Commission (08/2014)
Publication
The following is a selected list of publications, sorted in reverse chronological order.
For the full list, please visit his Google Scholar.
Selected Papers
-
equal contribution(ι) and (co-) corresponding author (∗)
-
BunnyFinder: Finding Incentive Flaws for Ethereum Consensus.
The Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2026, February 2026.
Rujia Li, Mingfei Zhang, Xueqian Lu, Wenbo Xu, Ying Yan, and Sisi Duan. -
Does Finality Gadget Finalize Your Block? A Case Study of Binance Consensus.
34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2025), August 2025.
Rujia Li, Jingyuan Ding, Qin Wang, Keting Jia, Haibin Zhang, and Sisi Duan. -
A Survey on Privacy-Preserving Techniques for Blockchain Smart Contracts.
Chinese Journal of Computers, May 2025 (Chinese version).
Youheng Wang, Kaikai Feng, Rujia Li∗, Sisi Duan, Qingjie Chen. -
Towards Efficient and Practical Multi-party Computation under Inconsistent Trust in TEEs .
46th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P 2025), May 2025.
Xuanwei Hu, Rujia Li, Yi Liu, Qi Wang. [PDF] -
Available Attestation: Towards a Reorg-Resilient Solution for Ethereum Proof-of-Stake.
34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2025), August 2025.
Mingfei Zhang, Rujia Li∗, Xueqian Lu, Sisi Duan. [PDF] -
Accountable Decryption made Formal and Practical.
IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (IEEE TIFS 2025), January 2025.
Rujia Li, Yuanzhao Li, Qin Wang, Sisi Duan, Qi Wang, Mark Ryan. [PDF] -
Bringing Smart Contract Confidentiality via Trusted Hardware: Fact and Fiction.
IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (IEEE TIFS 2024), November 2024.
Rujia Li, Qin Wang, Yuanzhao Li, Sisi Duan, Qi Wang, David Galindo. [PDF] -
Max Attestation Matters: Making Honest Parties Lose Their Incentives in Ethereum PoS.
33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2024), August 2024.
Mingfei Zhang, Rujia Li∗, Sisi Duan. [PDF]
🏆Awarded a Grant from Ethereum Foundation. -
Time-manipulation Attack: Breaking Fairness against Proof of Authority Aura.
32nd International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2023), May 2023.
Xinrui Zhangι, Rujia Liι, Qin Wang, Qi Wang, Sisi Duan. [PDF] -
SoK: TEE-assisted Confidential Smart Contract.
22nd Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2022), July 2022.
Rujia Liι, Qin Wangι, Qi Wang, David Galindo, Mark Ryan. [PDF] -
Exploring Unfairness on Proof of Authority: Order Manipulation Attacks and Remedies.
17th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM ASIACCS 2022), May 2022.
Qin Wangι, Rujia Liι, Shiping Chen, Qi Wang, Yang Xiang. [PDF] -
A Weak Consensus Algorithm and Its Application to High-Performance Blockchain.
40th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2021), May 2021.
Qin Wangι, Rujia Liι. [PDF] -
An Offline Delegatable Cryptocurrency System.
3rd IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC 2021), May 2021.
Rujia Liι, Qin Wangι, Xinrui Zhang, Qi Wang, David Galindo, Yang Xiang. [PDF] -
An Accountable Decryption System Based on Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts.
23rd Information Security Conference (ISC 2020), December 2020.
Rujia Li, Qin Wang, Feng Liu, Qi Wang, David Galindo. [PDF] -
Auditable Credential Anonymity Revocation Based on Privacy-Preserving Smart Contracts.
ESORICS 2019, 3rd International Workshop on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology, September 2019.
Rujia Li, David Galindo, Qi Wang. [PDF]
🏆 Awarded a Student Travel Grant
Selected Posters
-
Poster: An Offline Delegatable Cryptocurrency System.
28th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2021), February 2021.
Rujia Li, Qin Wang, Xinrui Zhang, Qi Wang, David Galindo, Yang Xiang. [PDF] -
Poster: Transparent Certificate Revocation for CBE Based on Blockchain..
41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP 2020), February 2021.
Qin Wangι, Rujia Liι, Qi Wang, David Galindo. [PDF]
Selected Patents
Over 40 Chinese patents, including more than 15 granted
-
A Trusted User Authentication Method, System, and Medium Based on Trusted Execution Environment.
Granted by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) .
Rujia Li, Zhentian Lin, Juncheng Zhang, Lei Xie, Enguang Chen -
A Trusted Method for Dynamic Reduction of Blockchain Data.
Granted by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) .
Rujia Li, Xiaoming Wang, Shanlin Lou, Yantao Ma
Thesis
Service
He is externaly/internally invited to conduct reviews for the following conferences and journals.
Conferences (external reviewer)
- IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2025)
- Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC 2023), (FC 2025)
- Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2024)
- ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2023), (CCS 2024)
- IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P 2024)
- The Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2023), (NDSS 2024), (NDSS 2025), (NDSS 2026)
- IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P 2023)
- IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN 2023)
- Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS 2022)
Journals
- IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (IEEE TDSC 2023), (IEEE TDSC 2024)
- IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (IEEE TIFS 2022, IEEE TIFS 2025)
- ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (IEEE TOSEM 2022)
- IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management (IEEE TNSM 2022)
- IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (IEEE TVT 2021)
- IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (IEEE TPDS 2022)
- Future Generation Computer Systems (FGCS 2020)
- IEEE Software (IEEE Softw 2019)
Research Students
He is fortunate to collaborate with these excellent students.
- Na Luo (2025-now) (now undergraduate student at RM University)
- Jingyuan Ding (2024-now) (now master student at Shandong University)
- Kaikai Feng (2023-now) (now PhD student at Shandong University)
- Youheng Wang (2023-now) (now PhD student at Shandong University)
- Mingfei Zhang (2022-now) (now PhD student at Shandong University)
- Si Liu (2021-now) (now lecturer at Zhengzhou Normal University)
- Yuanchao Li (2020-now) (now PhD student at Southern University of Science and Technology)
Alumni
- Xuanwei Hu (2020-2025) (research engineer at Huawei)
- Xinrui Zhang (2020-2024) (PhD student at the University of Sydney)
- Jiaqi Li (2020-2023) (research engineer at ZTE Corporation)
- Jinming Cui (2019-2020) (research engineer at Ant Group)
- Ye Liu (2018-2019) (PhD student at University of Newcastle)
- Shuang Wu (2017-2018) (PhD student at Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Teaching
- 2025, Tsinghua, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies, with Prof. Mei Luo, Guest Lecturer
- 2019, SUSTech, English for Career Development, with Natalie M. Ferguson, Teaching Assistant
- 2019, SUSTech, Cryptography and Network Security, with Prof. Qi Wang, Teaching Assistant
Others
- Co-founder, CryptoEconomics Lab of Tsinghua University . 12/2023-now
- Captain, the Postdoctoral Football Club of Tsinghua University. 10/2024-now
- President, the Postdoctoral Association at the IAS, Tsinghua University. 11/2023- 03/2025
Philosophy
- Less is more
- A genuine love for knowledge and innovation
- Don't cry over spilled milk
Research Taste
- Novelty
- Potential for significant impact
- Real-world problems
- Elegance
Slides
- 2023/01/05. Accountable Decryption made Formal and Practical
- 2023/01/03. TEE and its Key Management
- 2022/09/16. Hybrid Consensus Algorithm