Mark Dong
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University
Talk Title
Tokenomics Impact on User Behavior: Observations from NFT-Collateralized Lending Platforms
Abstract
This research examines whether "tokenomics" - the economic design of cryptocurrency tokens - actually influence user behavior by comparing NFT lending platforms with different token designs. Despite trading identical NFT assets, users exhibited vastly different behaviors across platforms with sophisticated versus simple tokenomics, including different loan terms and trading patterns. The study provides empirical evidence that tokenomics do significantly matter for cryptocurrency platform dynamics, reveals significant market concentration, identifies substantial risks for users and sparks regulatory discussions.
Bio
Jin-Dong (Mark) Dong is a final-year CyLab PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University advised by Prof. Nicolas Christin. His research focuses on understanding and protecting users in digital environments through user behavior analytics. By analyzing patterns in how users interact with the systems, Dong can identify vulnerabilities and predict threats across different domains, such as assessing financial risks in cryptocurrency applications and protecting users from malicious actors online.
Before joining CMU, Dong received my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at National Tsing-Hua University. He did research on Neural Architecture Search (NAS) with Prof. Min Sun, where they proposed a framework to automatically generate neural networks based on user demands.
Outside of work, Dong enjoy playing baseball, cooking (the four pastas of Rome have a special place in his heart), and making tea-like coffee. His name in traditional Chinese (zh-TW) is 董晉東.