Digital Currency and FinTech
Research on crypto markets, DeFi, smart contracts, and the financial microstructure of emerging digital systems.
Research lab · Hong Kong — Beijing — Remote
Digital markets, mechanism design, and AI-native economic inquiry.
Adrasteia Labs brings together economists and computer scientists to study digital currency, DeFi, market design, and empirical strategy for emerging economic systems.
Founded by Heikichi Hayashi, the lab develops theory-informed empirical research and AI-assisted research infrastructure at the frontier of finance, technology, and economic design.
Αδράστεια — “she from whom there is no escape” — a fitting patron for the study of incentive-compatible mechanisms.
Research
Three areas shape the portfolio.
Mechanism Design and Market Design
Fair and incentive-compatible allocation rules, strategic behavior, and algorithmic game theory in financial and digital markets.
AI for Economic Research
AI-driven workflows, empirical automation, and meta-economics approaches for faster and more transparent research production.
Selected work
Publications and working papers.
A Blessing in Disguise? DeFi Exploits and Short-Horizon Responses in U.S. Commercial Paper Spreads
Working Paper
Adrasteia: AI Agent Workflow for Economic Paper Writing
Accepted at ICML 2026 Workshop on Human-AI Co-Creativity
Smart Contracts, Dumb Money: Open Source Lemons
Kilts Center at Chicago Booth Marketing Data Center Paper
Smoothing the Cliff: Fair and Incentive-Compatible Priority Allocation via Randomized Mechanisms
The Private Enforcer: Algorithmic Deterrence and the Shadow Tax on Insider Trading
Working Paper
People
Economists and computer scientists across five departments.
Founding Director and Department Coordinator
Heikichi Hayashi
Adrasteia Labs; Research Assistant at The University of Hong Kong
Lab coordination · Empirical causal inference · DeFi
Core Member
Weiyu Qi
University of Chicago, Department of Computer Science
Blockchain algorithms · CS theory · AI
Core Member
Karl Yu
Boston College, Economics Department
Crypto incentives · Algorithmic game theory · Mechanism design
Contact
Working with the lab.
For research inquiries, collaborations, workshop invitations, or academic correspondence, write to the lab directly.