Tentative schedule

Kickoff - Álvaro Cartea

Olga Klein (Warwick Business School)

Informed Liquidity Provision on Decentralized Exchanges

Abstract: We study the role of liquidity providers (LPs) in price discovery on decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges. We find that while price discovery occurs predominantly through swaps, liquidity deposits and withdrawals also exert significant and persistent price impacts. Liquidity provision in the ETH-USDC low-fee pool close to the prevailing price has a permanent impact, consistent with informed behavior aimed at maximizing profit and mitigating adverse selection costs. We document heterogeneity across LPs, with larger orders, higher execution priority, narrower intervals, and sophisticated providers exhibiting greater informativeness. Their informational advantage arises in part from faster reactions to public information.

Ruizhe Jia (Stanford University)

TBD

Abstract: TBD

Andreas Park (University of Toronto)

TBD

Abstract: TBD

Roger Wattenhofer (ETH Zurich)

TBD

Abstract: TBD

Davide Crapis (Ethereum Foundation)

TBD

Abstract:  TBD

Fayçal Drissi (University of Oxford)

TBD

Abstract: TBD

Jillian Grennan (Emory University)

TBD

Abstract: TBD

Fahad Saleh (University of Florida)

TBD

Abstract:  TBD

Ciamac Moallemi (Columbia University)

TBD

Abstract:  TBD

Alfred Lehar (University of Calgary)

TBD

Abstract:  TBD

Shumiao Ouyang (University of Oxford)

TBD

Abstract:  TBD

Hanna Halaburda (NYU Stern)

On the Impossibility of Transparent and Decentralized DeFi Trading 

Abstract:   Permissionless blockchains promise to eliminate intermediaries by combining open participation, transparent execution, and contestable control. Control over transaction execution has nonetheless become increasingly concentrated on permissionless blockchains. In blockchains that support decentralized finance (DeFi), this concentration is economically consequential because transaction ordering directly affects trading payoffs. A small number of block producers determine transaction ordering and capture a large share of trading-related surplus, and this pattern deepens precisely as access expands and protocols adopt designs intended to make execution more competitive. 

This  outcome is not an accident of implementation or a failure of protocol design. We show that permissionless blockchains with DeFi activity endogenously centralize execution, despite transparency and regardless of protocol design. We develop a protocol-agnostic model of competition for transaction execution in which block producers---miners, validators, or builders---compete for control over block construction. When transaction ordering affects trading payoffs, execution generates extractable ordering rents. Heterogeneity in block producers' ability to capture these rents implies heterogeneous effective rewards from execution.

In equilibrium, contest-based selection sorts and amplifies these differences: block producers for whom execution is more valuable exert more effort (mining, staking or bidding), win execution more often, and become more reliable executors. Traders respond by routing transactions toward the most reliable block producers, generating coordination externalities that further concentrate execution. More decisive execution contests amplify these forces. Together, the analysis yields an impossibility result: under permissionless entry with DeFi activity, decentralized execution arises only under knife-edge conditions and is unstable to small perturbations. The findings highlight structural limits to decentralized execution in DeFi that are independent of specific protocol design choices.