Lioba Heimbach

IMG_0348.jpg

I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student advised by Prof. Dr. Roger Wattenhofer in the Distributed Computing (Disco) group at ETH Zurich.

My research centers around blockchain protocols with a focus on decentralized finance (DeFi). In particular, I strive towards enabling an accessible, decentralized, fair, and efficient blockchain and DeFi ecosystem. It is my belief that to improve on current system, a deep understanding of today’s landscape is required. Blockchain data transparency gives us the unique opportunity to do so. Thus, I perform measurement studies and analytical evaluations of blockchain and DeFi protocols aimed at enhancing the understanding of the current landscape and the behavior of its participants. Building on these insights, I work on proposing new protocols to tackle the identified problems and vulnerabilities.

When I am not working, I enjoy being outside and exploring new routes on my road bike.

news

Dec 13, 2024 Our paper “Deanonymizing Ethereum Validators: The P2P Network Has a Privacy Issue” was accepted at USENIX Security 2025.
Nov 1, 2024 Happy to join Common Prefix on a part-time basis!
Feb 11, 2024 Our paper “Non-Atomic Arbitrage in Decentralized Finance” was accepted at S&P 2024.
Jan 26, 2024 Our paper “Ethereum Proof-of-Stake Consensus Layer: Participation and Decentralization” was accepted at CoDecFin workshop at FC 2024.
Nov 26, 2023 Our paper “Short Paper: Dissecting the EIP-2930 Optional Access Lists” was accepted at FC 2024.

selected publications

2025

  1. Deanonymizing Ethereum Validators: The P2P Network Has a Privacy Issue
    Lioba Heimbach, Yann Vonlanthen, Juan Villacis, and 2 more authors
    Forthcoming in 34th USENIX Security Symposium, Seattle, USA, Aug 2025
    Awarded a bug bounty by the Ethereum Foundation.

2024

  1. Non-Atomic Arbitrage in Decentralized Finance
    Lioba Heimbach, Vabuk Pahari, and Eric Schertenleib
    In IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), San Francisco, USA, May 2024
    Non-archival: 4th Workshop on Decentralized Finance (DeFi), March 2024

2023

  1. Ethereum’s Proposer-Builder Separation: Promises and Realities
    Lioba Heimbach, Lucianna Kiffer, Christof Ferreira Torres, and 1 more author
    In 2023 ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), Montreal, QC, Canada, Oct 2023
  2. Base Fee Manipulation In Ethereum’s EIP-1559 Transaction Fee Mechanism
    Sarah Azouvi, Guy Goren, Lioba Heimbach, and 1 more author
    In 34th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC), L’Aquila, Italy, Oct 2023

2022

  1. SoK: Preventing Transaction Reordering Manipulations in Decentralized Finance
    Lioba Heimbach, and Roger Wattenhofer
    In 4th ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT), Cambridge, MA, USA, Sep 2022
    Non-archival: SNB-CIF Conference on Cryptoassets and Financial Innovation, May 2023