Exclusive Interview with Zhou Yajin from Blocksec: Building a Firewall in the "West World" of Blockchain

The blockchain world is like a digital "Wild West"—full of opportunities but fraught with crises. In this new land without a central authority, smart contracts are the law, code is the weapon, and hackers are like elusive outlaws, always ready to plunder digital wealth.

In 2021, the blockchain security company BlockSec was born. Professor Zhou Yajin, the founder, experienced the complete cycle from academic research to industrial implementation and discovered a harsh reality: blockchain security research often remains at the paper level, while the technologies that can truly protect user assets are far from sufficient. "We can no longer be mere bystanders," this thought prompted him to step down from the podium of Zhejiang University and enter the entrepreneurial front line.

Today, in the stories of the Web3 world, we interviewed Professor Zhou Yajin to discuss the tales of Web3 security.

BlockSec's Zhou Yajin: The Cross-Disciplinary Journey of Academia and Industry

In 2010, BlockSec founder Zhou Yajin went to the United States to pursue a PhD under Professor Jiang Xuxian. At that time, the Android ecosystem was just emerging, and malware detection was still a blue ocean, while his academic exploration happened to be at the forefront of the technological wave.

Five years later, he returned to China with a solid research foundation and joined the 360 Wireless Security Research Institute led by Professor Jiang Xuxian, diving into practical mobile security products—from academic papers to products with hundreds of millions of daily active users, he experienced the true value of technological research for the first time.

However, success in the industry did not stop him. In 2018, he chose to return to campus and became a professor at Zhejiang University, shifting to a younger field: blockchain security.

At that time, research on smart contract security was just beginning, with frequent vulnerabilities but a lack of systematic solutions. He and his team immersed themselves in research for three years, publishing papers and developing tools, but gradually realized a problem: no matter how cutting-edge the academic results, if they cannot truly solve industry pain points, it is ultimately a pity.

"Since we have technical accumulation and the industry has urgent security needs, why not do it ourselves?"

In May 2021, with this belief, Zhou Yajin stepped out of the ivory tower and founded BlockSec. From scholar to entrepreneur, he was no longer satisfied with merely discovering vulnerabilities; he aimed to ensure that security technology truly protects every transaction in the blockchain world.

BlockSec: Building World-Class Security Capabilities

From its inception, BlockSec established a differentiated strategy: leveraging technology and pursuing an international route. This choice was quickly recognized by the market, as the company secured its first round of financing led by Distributed Capital just a month after its establishment.

When asked about BlockSec's technical strength, Professor Zhou Yajin displayed both humility and confidence.

Firstly, in terms of academic influence, BlockSec leads the industry in the number of papers published at top security conferences and contributions to open-source tools. Unlike pure academic institutions, BlockSec can rapidly transform paper results into actual products.

Secondly, in terms of security incident response capabilities. "Basically, we can identify the problems in every major attack event quite early." Professor Zhou Yajin explained that the team has established a unique analytical methodology that can quickly pinpoint the essence of vulnerabilities.

Most groundbreaking is BlockSec's innovation in attack monitoring and blocking, such as the Phalcon product, a platform that integrates "protocol monitoring, attack blocking, and security response." After its launch, the platform successfully blocked over 20 attack incidents, saving protocol parties more than $20 million in digital asset losses.

Caption: On March 17, 2023, after BlockSec successfully intercepted an attack on the Paraspace NFT market, NFT holders staking on Paraspace flooded the comment section to thank BlockSec for saving their NFTs.

BlockSec's founder and CEO Zhou Yajin stated that this system fundamentally changes the confrontation landscape between the Web3 world and hackers through high-precision and comprehensive automated technology.

In the field of blockchain security, smart contract auditing is a basic service, but the BlockSec team recognized its limitations early on. "Auditing can only guarantee security at a certain point in time and cannot address new threats that arise after going live." To this end, BlockSec innovatively introduced the real-time protection concept from traditional security into the Web3 field.

Caption: BlockSec co-founder & CEO Professor Zhou Yajin shares technical details of the DeFi monitoring and blocking system at BlackHat USA 2024.

The team developed an automated front-running system that uses technology to block transactions before hackers complete their attacks. Although this innovation is effective, it also raises compliance considerations. "From certain perspectives, front-running itself is also controversial," Professor Zhou Yajin admitted. Therefore, BlockSec further empowers project parties with technology, allowing them to monitor and respond to security threats independently.

This evolution of security philosophy reflects Zhou Yajin's deep understanding of industry pain points. "Web3 security requires multi-layered defenses: pre-audit, in-process monitoring, and post-response, all of which are indispensable." He pointed out that the industry currently relies too heavily on auditing while neglecting other aspects.

Security Layout from a Global Perspective

Unlike other Chinese-speaking security companies, BlockSec established an international strategy from the very beginning. "We found that the field of attack analysis is mainly competitive among Chinese-speaking vendors, and establishing influence in the English-speaking community would create a differentiated advantage," Zhou Yajin explained.

This strategy has proven effective. BlockSec's brand awareness in overseas markets once surpassed that in Chinese-speaking regions. "Many overseas project parties know us, but Chinese developers are relatively less aware." Now, while maintaining its international advantage, the company is also strengthening its layout in the Chinese-speaking market.

Caption: At the DeFi Security Summit 2023 during the EthCC front conference, BlockSec co-founder & CEO Professor Zhou Yajin shared the efforts and achievements made by BlockSec in monitoring and blocking systems.

Regarding the future of the industry, Zhou Yajin believes that AI will profoundly impact the security field. "AI can assist in auditing work, and as models improve, the efficiency gains will become increasingly apparent." BlockSec is already exploring specific paths for the integration of AI and security.

In his view, there are still many unmet needs in Web3 security, especially for security products aimed at ordinary users. "Phishing, poisoning, and other attacks targeting individuals are still rampant, and there is huge room for innovation in this area." At the same time, with traditional financial institutions entering the Web3 space and the rise of digital stablecoins, new compliance needs are also emerging, prompting BlockSec to launch solutions in this area, such as the Phalcon Compliance APP.

Caption: BlockSec Phalcon Compliance App illustration. By screening addresses and transactions, it addresses compliance issues in scenarios such as digital currency payments.

In Conclusion

From scholar to entrepreneur, Zhou Yajin has always maintained a pursuit of the essence of technology.

"We hope to raise the security level of the entire industry through cutting-edge technology research." This may be the deeper meaning behind the orange logo of BlockSec's Phalcon product—like a sheriff in the Wild West, guarding the safety and order of this new digital frontier called Web3.

In the tumultuous development of the crypto world, security has always been the cornerstone supporting the healthy development of the industry. Zhou Yajin and his team are using technological innovation to build a stronger security defense for this emerging field. As he said, "We want to create a secure and usable Web3 world." This is not only BlockSec's vision but also the technological ideal of this scholar-entrepreneur.