Alexander Hicks is a British researcher, computer scientist, and entrepreneur specializing in formal verification, mechanism design, and the economic security of blockchain protocols. He is a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, where his work focuses on securing the Ethereum ecosystem's core infrastructure. His research contributions span the formal verification of Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machines (zk-EVMs), the game-theoretic analysis of transaction fee mechanisms, and the design of transparency-enhancing technologies. ^{[1] [2] [3]}​

Education

Hicks holds multiple advanced degrees in physics, mathematics, and computer science. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Theoretical Physics from Queen Mary University of London. Following his undergraduate studies, he attended the University of Cambridge, where he obtained a Master of Advanced Study (MASt) in Mathematics from the Mathematical Tripos program. It was during his time at Cambridge that he developed an early interest in formal methods, spending a summer working on the formal verification of mathematics using the Isabelle proof assistant. ^{[1] [2]}​

In 2023, Hicks completed a Ph.D. in Information Security from the information security research group at University College London (UCL). His doctoral research was supported by the Ripple University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI). His thesis, titled "Design and Usage of Transparency Enhancing Technologies," was supervised by Steven Murdoch and explored the application of technologies based on cryptographic logs to improve the transparency and auditability of complex systems. The research focused on how such systems could be used in contexts like cryptocurrencies and certificate authorities. ^{[1] [2]}​

Career

Hicks's career has been situated at the intersection of academia and the blockchain industry. ^[2] He completed a Researcher internship at OneSpan in Cambridge from July to October 2019. He then worked as a Research Assistant in UCL’s Department of Security and Crime Science from April to July 2020, and served as a Teaching Assistant at University College London (UCL) from January 2017 to September 2021 in the Department of Computer Science, teaching undergraduate and postgraduate modules and supervising MSc projects. He joined Ethereum Foundation in June 2024 as a researcher, and since June 2025 he has served as Team Lead for protocol snarkification. ^{[3] [2]}​

Research and Contributions

Hicks's research aims to enhance the security and integrity of decentralized systems through three primary lenses: formal verification, game-theoretic economic analysis, and transparency.

Formal Verification of zk-EVMs

At the Ethereum Foundation, Hicks leads the Verified-zkEVM project, a major initiative to apply formal verification to Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machines. The project's central objective is to create a complete, machine-checked formal specification of a zk-EVM and to prove that its implementation correctly adheres to that specification. Zk-EVMs are virtual machines that can generate cryptographic proofs of their own execution, forming the technological backbone of ZK-Rollups, which are a primary solution for scaling the Ethereum network. ^{[1] [3]}​

The significance of this work lies in providing the highest possible level of security assurance for what is considered a critical piece of next-generation infrastructure for Ethereum. As Layer 2 solutions handle billions of dollars in assets, a single bug in a zk-EVM's core logic could lead to catastrophic financial losses. Formal verification uses mathematical methods to eliminate entire classes of bugs and vulnerabilities, ensuring the system behaves exactly as intended. ^[4]​

Transparency-Enhancing Technologies

A core theme of Hicks's Ph.D. research was the use of log-based transparency-enhancing technologies (TETs). He co-authored a proposal for a system named VAMS (Verifiable Auditing of Access to Confidential Data). VAMS is designed to allow publicly verifiable audits of how sensitive data, such as medical or law enforcement records, is accessed, without compromising the privacy of the individuals in the dataset. ^[1]​

The system functions by recording every access request to a confidential database in a cryptographic log, which can be built using a Merkle tree or a blockchain. This creates an immutable, tamper-evident record of all queries. Auditors can then process this log to generate and publish aggregate statistics about data access patterns. The key innovation is that these published statistics can be publicly and mathematically verified for correctness against the cryptographic log, all while preserving the confidentiality of the specific records that were accessed. Hicks has argued that such transparency mechanisms are crucial not just for verifying compliance but also for enabling public contestability of a system's rules and for resolving disputes fairly. ^[1]​

Decentralized Systems and Game Theory

Hicks has published significant research analyzing the economic incentives and security models of blockchain protocols. His work often uses game theory to identify potential weaknesses or unintended consequences in protocol design.

One notable paper, co-authored in 2023 with Sarah Azouvi, Guy Goren, and Lioba Heimbach, analyzed Ethereum's EIP-1559 transaction fee mechanism. They demonstrated that, under certain conditions, it could be a rational, profit-maximizing strategy for miners to intentionally mine empty blocks. This action withholds transactions from being included, which in turn causes the base fee in subsequent blocks to rise, potentially increasing the miners' future revenue from transaction fees. This research highlighted a subtle vulnerability in the incentive structure of one of Ethereum's most important economic updates. ^[1]​

In a 2018 paper co-authored with Patrick McCorry and Sarah Meiklejohn, Hicks explored cross-chain incentive manipulation. The research showed how to construct trustless smart contracts to bribe miners. For instance, a contract on Ethereum could be programmed to automatically pay a bribe to Bitcoin miners if they execute a specific action on the Bitcoin network, such as orphaning a particular block. This demonstrated that the economic security models of different blockchains are not isolated and that incentives on one chain can be used to influence behavior on another. ^[1]​

Further research with Sarah Azouvi examined the reliability of decentralization itself. Using game-theoretic models, they showed that while increasing the decentralization of a system is difficult, it can be reliably maintained over time, particularly when "decentralization conscious players" and long-term incentives are factored into the system's design. ^[1]​

Selected Publications

• Hicks, A. (2023). "Design and Usage of Transparency Enhancing Technologies." PhD Thesis, University College London. ^[1]
• Azouvi, S., Goren, G., Heimbach, L., & Hicks, A. (2023). "Base Fee Manipulation In Ethereum's EIP-1559 Transaction Fee Mechanism." International Symposium on Distributed Computing. ^[1]
• Azouvi, S., & Hicks, A. (2022). "Decentralisation Conscious Players and System Reliability." Financial Cryptography and Data Security. ^[1]
• Hicks, A., et al. (2022). "Cerberus: A Formal Approach to Re-engineering Certificate Transparency." IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P). ^[2]
• Hicks, A., et al. (2022). "SoK: Transparent Dishonesty." ACM Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT). ^[2]
• Hicks, A., Mavroudis, V., Al-Bassam, M., Meiklejohn, S., & Murdoch, S. J. (2018). "VAMS: Verifiable Auditing of Access to Confidential Data." arXiv:1805.04772. ^[1]
• McCorry, P., Hicks, A., & Meiklejohn, S. (2018). "Smart Contracts for Bribing Miners." Financial Cryptography and Data Security: FC 2018 International Workshops. ^[1]