Minghui Xu |

I am a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Technology at Shandong University, where I lead the Blockchain and Distributed Security Lab with Prof. Xiuzhen Cheng. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from The George Washington University in 2021 and my B.S. in Physics from Beijing Normal University in 2018. I was a visiting scholar at DISCO Lab, ETH Zurich.
[ Lab Webpage ] [ Lab Github ] [ Google Scholar ] [ 中文版主页 ]

Research Interest
My research focuses on designing scalable, highly secure and reliable systems (including blockchain, decentralized storage network, and AI infrastructures) by integrating cryptography for provable security with distributed architectures for scalability and fault tolerance.
Opennings: We are seeking highly self-motivated postdocs, PhD candidates, master's, and undergraduate students to collaborate on the aforementioned research areas. Kindly reach out to me with your CV. Contact: mhxu@sdu.edu.cn
News
[2025/01] I am thrilled to have been early promoted to full professor – one of only six at the university.
[2024/12] Two papers were accepted by IEEE INFOCOM'25: EC-Chain: Cost-Effective Storage Solution for Permissionless Blockchains; Partially Synchronous BFT Consensus Made Practical in Wireless Networks.
[2024/11] I will serve as a AEC member of USENIX Security'25.
[2024/11] I will serve as a PC member of CCS'25.
[2024/11] I have been honored to be selected by the China Institute of Electronics for the 10th China Association for Science and Technology Youth Talent Support Program.
[2024/10] Happy to receive the ACM China SIGAPP Rising Star.
[2024/10] Our new book, "Wireless Consensus: Theory and Applications" is now available on Springer.
[2024/08] I am invited to serve on the program committee of AsiaCCS'25.
[2024/06] Accepted to USENIX Security'24: zkCross: A Novel Architecture for Cross-Chain Privacy-Preserving Auditing.
[2024/05] Accepted to IEEE ICMC'24: On Protecting the Data Privacy of Large Language Models (LLMs): A Survey.
[2024/04] Accepted to ACM Computing Surveys: Exploring Blockchain Technology through a Modular Lens: A Survey.
[2024/02] Accepted to IEEE TC: BFT-DSN: A Byzantine Fault Tolerant Decentralized Storage Network.
[2023/12] Accepted to IEEE INFOCOM'24: FileDES: A Secure, Scalable and Succinct Blockchain-based Decentralized Encrypted Storage Network.
[2023/08] Four papers accepted at IEEE TMC, JSAC, and TC.
[2023/05] Accepted to IEEE Network: Meta Computing.
[2023/04] Congrats to "Deep Stack Fantasy" for winning the first place in the Open Research track at ETH Beijing Hackathon.
[2023/03] Accepted to IEEE TPDS: Incentive Mechanism Design for Joint Resource Allocation in Blockchain-based Federated Learning.
Selected Publications [Complete List]
Blockchain Interoperability:
[USENIX Security'24] zkCross: A Novel Architecture for Cross-Chain Privacy-Preserving Auditing
Yihao Guo, Minghui Xu*, Xiuzhen Cheng, Dongxiao Yu, Wangjie Qiu, Gang Qu, Weibing Wang, Mingming Song
33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2024
[ACM Computing Surveys'24] Exploring Blockchain Technology through a Modular Lens: A Survey
Minghui Xu, Yihao Guo, Chunchi Liu, Qin Hu, Dongxiao Yu, Zehui Xiong, Dusit Niyato, Xiuzhen Cheng*
ACM Computing Surveys, 2024
[IEEE JSAC'23] An Adaptive and Modular Blockchain Enabled Architecture for a Decentralized Metaverse
Ye Cheng, Yihao Guo, Minghui Xu*, Qin Hu, Dongxiao Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2023
[IEEE TC'23] Cross-Channel: Scalable Off-Chain Channels Supporting Fair and Atomic Cross-Chain Operations
Yihao Guo, Minghui Xu*, Dongxiao Yu, Yong Yu, Rajiv Ranjan, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2023
[Code]
[IEEE IPCCC'22] zk-PCN: A Privacy-Preserving Payment Channel Network Using zk-SNARKs
Yihao Guo, Minghui Xu*, Xiuzhen Cheng, Dongxiao Yu, Yifei Zou, Weifeng Lyu
IEEE International Performance, Computing, and Communications Conference (IPCCC), 2022
Decentralized Storage and Computing:
[IEEE INFOCOM'25] EC-Chain: Cost-Effective Storage Solution for Permissionless Blockchains
Minghui Xu, Hechuan Guo*, Ye Cheng, Chunchi Liu, Dongxiao Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2025
[IEEE INFOCOM'24] FileDES: A Secure, Scalable and Succinct Blockchain-based Decentralized Encrypted Storage Network
Minghui Xu, Jiahao Zhang, Hechuan Guo, Xiuzhen Cheng*, Dongxiao Yu, Qin Hu, Yijun Li, Yipu Wu
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2024
[Slides]
[IEEE TC'24] BFT-DSN: A Byzantine Fault Tolerant Decentralized Storage Network
Hechuan Guo, Minghui Xu*, Jiahao Zhang, Chunchi Liu, Rajiv Ranjan, Dongxiao Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2024
[IEEE TC'23] FileDAG: A Multi-Version Decentralized Storage Network Built on DAG-based Blockchain
Hechuan Guo, Minghui Xu*, Jiahao Zhang, Chunchi Liu, Dongxiao Yu, Schahram Dustdar, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2023
[Code][Slides]
[IEEE ICDCS'22] Curb: Trusted and Scalable Software-Defined Network Control Plane for Edge Computing
Minghui Xu, Chenxu Wang, Yifei Zou, Dongxiao Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng*, Weifeng Lyu
IEEE 42nd International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2022
[Slides]
[IEEE TMC'23] TBAC: A Tokoin-based Accountable Access Control Scheme for the Internet of Things
Chunchi Liu, Minghui Xu*, Hechuan Guo, Xiuzhen Cheng, Yinhao Xiao, Dongxiao Yu, Bei Gong, Arkady Yerukhimovich, Shengling Wang, Weifeng Lyu
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2023
[Code]
[IEEE TC'22] Extending On-chain Trust to Off-chain--Trustworthy Blockchain Data Collection using Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)
Chunchi Liu, Hechuan Guo, Minghui Xu*, Shengling Wang, Dongxiao Yu, Jiguo Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2022
[Code]
Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Consensus:
[IEEE INFOCOM'25] Partially Synchronous BFT Consensus Made Practical in Wireless Networks
Shuo Liu, Minghui Xu*, Yifei Zou, Xiuzhen Cheng, Wangjie Qiu, Gang Qu
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2025
[Code]
[IEEE TMC'22] BLOWN: A Blockchain Protocol for Single-Hop Wireless Networks under Adversarial SINR
Minghui Xu, Feng Zhao*, Yifei Zou, Chunchi Liu, Xiuzhen Cheng, Falko Dressler
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2022
[Slides]
[IEEE TC'22] CloudChain: A Cloud Blockchain Using Shared Memory Consensus and RDMA
Minghui Xu, Shuo Liu, Dongxiao Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng*, Shaoyong Guo, Jiguo Yu
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2022
[IEEE TWC'21] wChain: A Fast Fault-Tolerant Blockchain Protocol for Multihop Wireless Networks
Minghui Xu, Chunchi Liu, Yifei Zou, Feng Zhao*, Jiguo Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2021
[Slides]
Applied Cryptography:
[IEEE INFOCOM'23] Latency-First Smart Contract: Overclock the Blockchain for a While
Huayi Qi, Minghui Xu*, Xiuzhen Cheng, Weifeng Lyu
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2023
[Code]
[IEEE TC'22] Split: A Hash-based Memory Optimization Method for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARK)
Huayi Qi, Ye Cheng, Minghui Xu*, Dongxiao Yu, Haipeng Wang, Weifeng Lyu
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2023
[arXiv] VDORAM: Towards a Random Access Machine with Both Public Verifiability and Distributed Obliviousness
Huayi Qi, Minghui Xu*, Xiaohua Jia, Xiuzhen Cheng
[arXiv] Trinity: A Scalable and Forward-Secure DSSE for Spatio-Temporal Range Query
Zhijun Li, Kuizhi Liu, Minghui Xu*, Xiangyu Wang, Yinbin Miao, Jianfeng Ma, Xiuzhen Cheng
[arXiv] AD-MPC: Fully Asynchronous Dynamic MPC with Guaranteed Output Delivery
Wenxuan Yu, Minghui Xu*, Bing Wu, Sisi Duan, Xiuzhen Cheng
AI (LLM) Security & Privacy:
[IEEE ICMC’24] On Protecting the Data Privacy of Large Language Models (LLMs): A Survey
Biwei Yan, Kun Li, Minghui Xu*, Yueyan Dong, Yue Zhang, Zhaochun Ren, Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE International Conference on Meta Computing (ICMC), 2024
[IEEE TC'24] FedRFQ: Prototype-based Federated Learning with Reduced Redundancy, Minimal Failure, and Enhanced Quality
Biwei Yan; Hongliang Zhang; Minghui Xu; Dongxiao Yu; Xiuzhen Cheng
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2024
[IEEE TPDS'23] Incentive Mechanism Design for Joint Resource Allocation in Blockchain-based Federated Learning
Zhilin Wang, Qin Hu*, Ruinian Li, Minghui Xu, Zehui Xiong
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 2023
[IEEE TC'22] SPDL: A Blockchain-enabled Secure and Privacy-preserving Decentralized Learning System
Minghui Xu, Zongrui Zou, Ye Cheng, Qin Hu, Dongxiao Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng*
IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2023
[Code] [Slides]
[arXiv] I'm Spartacus, No, I'm Spartacus: Measuring and Understanding LLM Identity Confusion
Kun Li, Shichao Zhuang, Yue Zhang*, Minghui Xu*, Ruoxi Wang, Kaidi Xu, Xinwen Fu, Xiuzhen Cheng
[arXiv] VMID: A Multimodal Fusion LLM Framework for Detecting and Identifying Misinformation of Short Videos
Weihao Zhong, Yinhao Xiao*, Minghui Xu*, Xiuzhen Cheng
[arXiv] Upcycling Noise for Federated Unlearning
Jianan Chen, Qin Hu*, Fangtian Zhong, Yan Zhuang, Minghui Xu
Books
Wireless Consensus: Theory and Applications
Minghui Xu, Yifei Zou, Xiuzhen Cheng
Springer Nature, Oct 2024
Awards
10th China Association for Science and Technology Youth Talent Support Program (第十届中国科协青年人才托举计划) Nov 2024
ACM China SIGAPP Rising Star Oct 2024
International Conference on Generative Artificial Intelligence and Information Security (GAIIS 2024), Best Paper Award Mar 2024
CCF & ATEC Blockchain Security and Privacy Competition, Excellent Guidance Award Dec 2023
The Future Plan for Young Scholars at Shandong University Sep 2023
Open Research track at ETH Beijing Hackathon, 1st Place May 2023
Filecoin China Hackathon, 2nd Place Aug 2022
Award for Excellence in Supervision of Undergraduate Dissertations July 2022
The 15th International Conference on Wireless Algorithms, Systems and Applications (WASA 2020), Best Paper Award Dec 2020
Award for Excellent Undergraduate Students of Beijing [Top 5%] Jun 2018
First Prize of Taiwan College-Student Physicists' Tournament (TCPT) Jan 2016
Second Prize of China Undergraduate Physicists' Tournament (CUPT) Aug 2015
Grants
Blockchain System for Internet of Things (IoT), National Key R&D Program of China, PI (Jan 2024 – Dec 2027) Dec 2023
Blockchain Protocol in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, NSFC, PI (Oct 2023 – Sep 2026) Aug 2023
Cross-Chain Security Service based on Modular Design, NSFC, PI (Jan 2023 – Dec 2027) Sep 2022
Secure Protection of the Data Lifecycle Based on Blockchain, NSFC, Co-PI (Jan 2024 – Jan 2028) Dec 2023
Blockchain Key Technologies for Internet of Things, Shandong Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars, PI (Apr 2023 – Mar 2026) Feb 2023
Autonomous Computing for Storage-Computation-Communication Integration, National Key R&D Program of China, Co-PI (Feb 2023 – Jan 2026) Feb 2023
Trusted Networking and Collaborative Computing of Ubiquitous IoT, Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, Co-PI (Jan 2023 – Dec 2027) Sep 2022
CCF-Huawei Blockchain Grant, PI (Jan 2022 – Dec 2022, Rate: 9/84) Jan 2022
Teaching
Blockchain Principles, SDU CS, Lecturer Fall 2022-24
Introduction to Cryptography, SDU CS, Lecturer Fall 2021-24
Blockchain and Finance, SDU CS, Lecturer Summer 2022-24
CSCI 6907 Advanced Blockchain, GWU CS, Teaching Assistant Spring 2020
CSCI 6547 Wireless and Mobile Security, GWU CS, Teaching Assistant Fall 2019
CSCI 3410 System Programming, GWU CS, Teaching Assistant Spring 2019
CSCI 2312 Discrete Structures, GWU CS, Teaching Assistant Fall 2018
Professional Service
Editorship
- Associate Editor (2024-Now), IEEE Transactions on Computers - Security and Privacy Track.
- Editorial Board Member (2022-Now), Elsevier High-Confidence Computing.
- Guest Editor (2025), CMC SI: Utilizing and Securing Large Language Models for Cybersecurity and Beyond.
Technical Program Committee
- Publicity Chair: IEEE ICMC'23/24, IEEE SmartCity'24.
- Track Chair: EAI WiSATS'25, IEEE IPCCC'22/23, IEEE FNWF'23.
- Member: ACM CCS'25, USENIX Security AEC'25, ACM AsiaCCS'25, IEEE MetaCom'23/24, IEEE ICA3PP'23/24, IEEE ICNC'23/24, IEEE MSN'24.
Students
I am fortunate to collaborate with many exceptional students.
PhD
- Yueyan Dong (2024-Now)
- Jiahao Zhang (2024-Now)
- Wenxuan Yu (2023-Now)
- Chenxu Wang (2022-Now)
- Shuo Liu (2022-Now)
- Huayi Qi (2020-Now)
- Ye Cheng (2020-Now)
- Yihao Guo (2019-2024): Postdoc@PolyU; PolyU Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow
- Hechuan Guo (2020-2024): Postdoc@SDU-ISE; Specially Funded Postdoctoral Fellow, CCF Blockchain Technical Committee Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation (2/22), ACM Qingdao Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation.
Master
- Mengyuan Zeng (2024-2027)
- Cheng Wang (2024-2027)
- Xiaoyu Liu (2024-2027)
- Chenyao Wang (2024-2027)
- Shuhao Xiong (2024-2027)
- Weiqi Zhang (2023-2026)
- Haoyang Song (2023-2026)
- Tianyi Sun (2022-2026)
- Jiahao Zhang (2022-2025): PhD@SDU-CS
- Yueyan Dong (2022-2025): PhD@SDU-CS
- Dongliang Duan (2021-2024): ByteDance
- Liping Wang (2020-2023): Meituan
- Yifang Li (2020-2023)
Undergraduate Students (work with me for more than one year)
- Wenjun Luo (graduated in 2025): NA
- Bing Wu (graduated in 2025): PhD@PolyU
- Chuanlei Li (graduated in 2025): Master@HKUST(Guangzhou)
- Yuezhou Zheng (graduated in 2025): Master@Zhejiang University
- Shengli Yuan (graduated in 2025): Master@Tsinghua University
- Jin Zhou (graduated in 2023): PhD@University of Notre Dame
- Shuo Liu (graduated in 2022): PhD@SDU-CS
- Chenxu Wang (graduated in 2022): PhD@SDU-CS
- Zongrui Zou (graduated in 2022): PhD@Nanjing University