Research profile

I study the scalability, security, and privacy of blockchains. My work combines cryptography and distributed systems, with a focus on Bitcoin and consensus. Recently, I started researching how AI agents and formal verification can help invent new protocols for cryptography and distributed computing.

You can find my full publication list on Google Scholar and DBLP.

Selected publications

• Trustless Bitcoin Vaults
  Lukas Aumayr, Xinshu Dong, Runchao Han, Srivatsan Sridhar, David Tse, and Nikhil Vanjani
  IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P 2027) · To appear
• EBFT: Simplifying BFT Consensus Through Egalitarianism
  Jianyu Niu, Runchao Han, Hanzheng Lyu, Ivan Beschastnikh, Yinqian Zhang, and Chen Feng
  IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC 2026)
  [Journal version] [Variant used in VeChain]
• Constant latency and finality for dynamically available DAG
  Hans Schmiedel, Runchao Han, Qiang Tang, Ron Steinfeld, and Jiangshan Yu
  IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P 2025)
  [Paper]
• Modeling Mobile Crash in Byzantine Consensus
  Hans Schmiedel, Runchao Han, Qiang Tang, Ron Steinfeld, and Jiangshan Yu
  IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium (CSF 2024)
  [Paper]
• Interchain Timestamping for Mesh Security
  Ertem Nusret Tas, Runchao Han, David Tse, Fisher Yu, and Kamilla Nazirkhanova
  ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2023)
  [Paper]

No papers match your search.

Engineering profile

I build systems that support individual sovereignty and freedom. I enjoy taking research ideas through prototypes to production. I program mostly in Go and Rust.

I joined Babylon as a founding engineer in 2022 and worked through each pivot with the team. I helped take Bitcoin timestamping, staking, and chain integrations into production with Babylon Genesis. For Trustless Bitcoin Vaults, I contributed to the protocol design, built the first proof of concept, and helped deliver the testnet launch.

I advocate AI adoption and develop AI projects. My work includes reusable AI skills and workflows, open-source research tools, and AI agent workspaces.

[GitHub]

Selected repositories

• BTC staking infrastructure. Babylon Genesis and Finality Provider bring Bitcoin security to proof-of-stake networks. Vigilante and BTC Staker support Bitcoin staking and communication between Babylon and Bitcoin.
• BTC staking integration. Babylon SDK and contracts for Cosmos chains and rollups connect other chains to Bitcoin security.
• Formal verification. Kriterion's argomac-lean provides a Lean implementation and security proofs for ArgoMAC.

Personal projects

• AI research and reasoning. Reaper takes a research question through investigation to a written paper. Senate brings AI agents together for debate and collaborative decisions.
• AI agent workspaces. Octopus lets developers direct AI coding agents on parallel tasks. ClawPier helps users manage isolated AI agent environments.

Standard

• EIP-2266: Atomic Swap-based American Call Option Contract Standard
  Runchao Han, Haoyu Lin, and Jiangshan Yu
  Ethereum Request for Comments (ERCs)
  [Link] [Peep an EIP #23]

Bug bounty

• Default `PrepareProposalHandler` may produce invalid proposals when used with default `SenderNonceMempool`
  together with Fangyu Gai, Vitalis Salis, and Konrad Staniec
  Bug bounty program for Cosmos
  [Report] [Github security advisory]
• PostHandler panicks upon a failed transaction
  together with Fangyu Gai, Vitalis Salis, and Konrad Staniec
  Bug bounty program for Cosmos
  [Report]

Professional services

Talks

• 2023: FC'23
• 2022: AFT'22, CSIRO-Data61, Nervos Foundation
• 2021: AsiaCCS'21, CSIRO-Data61, Peep an EIP #23
• 2020: Huawei Noah's Ark Lab, Decrypto
• 2019: AFT'19

Conference program committee member

• 2025: AsiaCCS
• 2024: GBC
• 2023: PST, VeriDBSys@SIGMOD
• 2022: ICA3PP

Conference/journal reviewer

• 2024: CCS
• 2023: DSN, TDSC, SecureComm, Ledger Journal, Journal of Network and Systems Management
• 2022: EuroS&P, IEEE Blockchain, IEEE Transaction of Service Computing, ACM DLT Journal, Journal of Network and Systems Management
• 2021: DSN, ICBC, IEEE Blockchain, NSS, MSN, TrustCom, IEEE Transaction of Service Computing
• 2020: AFT, ICDCS, SRDS, ACNS, AsiaCCS, TrustCom, ACISP, ICBC, NSS, TDSC, The Computer Journal, IEEE IoT Journal, IEEE Software Journal, IEEE Transaction of Service Computing
• 2019: Indocrypt, TrustCom, Future Generation Computing System

Awards

• Data61 Top-up Scholarship, CSIRO's Data61
• Faculty of Information Technology International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, Monash University
• Faculty of Information Technology Research Scholarship, Monash University
• Best paper nomination, ISPASS'19

Mentoring

• Muhong Huang. Reputation-based state machine replication (NCA'22). Now: PhD student at UESTC
• Zhichun Lu. General Congestion Attack on HTLC-Based Payment Channel Networks (Tokenomics'21). Now: PhD student at University of Sydney

Teaching

• 2019 fall, TA for FIT 5214 Blockchain, Monash University.

Useful resources

Research links

• You and Your Research by Richard Hamming
• PHD Comics: The PHD Movies
• How to Look for Ideas in Computer Science Research by Zhiyun Qian
• How to write a technical paper by Michael Ernst
• Tips and Guidance for Students Writing Papers and Reports by Gernot Heiser
• How to write a thorough peer review and its associated worksheet

Crypto links

• Security and Privacy Conference Deadlines
• Crypto lecture notes collected by myself
• Sequences of games: a tool for taming complexity in security proofs by Victor Shoup
• How To Simulate It - A Tutorial on the Simulation Proof Technique by Yehuda Lindell
• The Definitive Glossary of Higher Mathematical Jargon
• Theoretical Toys by Xiao Liang
• Expository papers by Keith Conrad
• Mihir Bellare's Crypto links
• Ron Rivest's Crypto links

System links

• System Conference Deadlines
• How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper by Roy Levin and David D. Redell
• How to write a systems paper by Vincent Gramoli
• Systems Benchmarking Crimes by Gernot Heiser
• Writing reviews for systems conferences by Timothy Roscoe

Programming links

• Rust Language Cheat Sheet
• Rust API Guidelines Checklist
• Cryptocoding: Guidelines for low-level cryptography software

About this website

This site is my personal desktop on the web.

Windows XP provides the frame. The profile page and music player add personal details.

You control the desktop.

• You can open a window with one click.
• You can drag a window by its title bar.
• You can minimize a window to the taskbar.
• You can double-click a title bar to maximize a window.
• You can use Tab and Enter to reach each control.
• You can press Escape to close the Start menu.

The original site used mahbodnr's Windows-style homepage.

This site uses HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Webamp provides the music player.