Research

I work on distributed ledger technologies, from protocol-level design to real-world applications in energy, governance, and privacy.

Research Areas

Blockchain-Based Data Marketplaces

Most of my PhD work revolves around decentralized data marketplace architectures for the energy domain. I look at how to enable privacy-preserving, trustworthy, and interoperable data exchange using technologies like Ocean Protocol, IDSA connectors, and GAIA-X dataspaces. One concrete outcome is a sub-8 second decentralized marketplace for energy data, showing that these systems can actually work at practical speeds.

Ocean Protocol IDSA GAIA-X Energy Data Digital Twins

DAO Governance and Sustainability

I study Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) with a focus on what makes their governance sustainable over time. This includes defining on-chain metrics to measure governance health, building game-theoretic incentive models for participation, and running empirical analyses on real DAO data to understand why some organizations thrive and others don't.

DAOs On-chain Metrics Game Theory Governance Tokenomics

Privacy-Preserving Cryptographic Techniques

I am interested in bringing advanced cryptographic primitives closer to practice. My work touches on Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proofs, Multi-Party Computation (MPC), and Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), with the goal of enabling privacy-preserving computations and verifiable data exchanges on blockchain systems.

ZK Proofs MPC FHE SSI Smart Contract Security

Layer 2 Scaling and Rollups

I follow and contribute to the L2 ecosystem, looking at how rollups and off-chain scaling solutions can address throughput and cost limitations of base-layer blockchains. This includes studying rollup architectures (optimistic and ZK-based), cross-layer composability, and how L2s can serve as infrastructure for data marketplace and DApp deployment.

Rollups Optimistic L2 ZK Rollups Scalability Cross-layer

Blockchain Foundations: Protocols and Consensus

Beyond applications, I care about the underlying protocol layer. I study consensus mechanisms, network-level properties, and protocol design trade-offs. This foundational interest informs my applied work and connects to hands-on experience building blockchain nodes from scratch (e.g., my Rust-Chain project) and working with Cosmos SDK and Hyperledger Fabric in production contexts.

Consensus Protocol Design Cosmos SDK Hyperledger Fabric Distributed Systems

European Projects

At Links Foundation, I contribute to several EU-funded research projects where academic ideas meet industrial deployment.

EU-DREAM

European Data-driven Research and Energy Analytics Marketplace. Building scalable data exchange solutions for the energy sector.

DataCellar

Developing secure data sharing infrastructures for sustainable energy management and efficiency.

eFORT

Advancing DLT-based solutions for trusted data management and cross-border interoperability.

B4A

Blockchain for All. Investigating inclusive blockchain solutions and their societal impact.

ENACT

EU Horizon Europe project on environmental health risk assessment. I lead the design and development of the DLT-based Secure Data Exchange Layer (Task 5.4), ensuring data provenance, integrity, and tamper-proof "Proof-of-Origin" for medical and sensor data.

INNO-TREC

Innovative Transactive Renewable Energy Communities (Grant 101230578). Developing next-generation tools and platforms for Renewable Energy Communities, tested across 6 demos in 6 countries. Started Jan 2026.

Collaborators and Groups

My research is carried out within two main groups:

  • Links Foundation (Torino) – Applied research centre established by Compagnia di San Paolo and Politecnico di Torino. I work in the blockchain and distributed systems unit.

  • Department of Computer Science, University of Turin – My academic home within the National PhD Programme ISAS, where I collaborate with researchers in distributed ledger technologies.

I have also worked with researchers at: