Student Spotlight: Donggoo Kim

Thursday, August 13, 2026

This week, we shine a spotlight on OMSCS student Donggoo Kim. Keep reading to learn more about Donggoo's background, post-graduation plans, and more!

What is your academic and/or professional background? If you're currently working, what do you do?

I have a background in Economics and Industrial Mathematics Software, and I'm currently a Software Engineer at Boeing Korea, where I've been since August 2021, designing backend systems for enterprise aircraft configuration management to support future airplane development trade studies. In 2023, I started the OMSCS program with a specialization in Computing Systems. Outside of my day job, I'm an active blockchain researcher and Bitcoin builder. I recently published a paper at IEEE ICBC 2026 on a Layered Proof of Reserves framework, and I'm working on turning that research into an open-source SDK. I also founded Bitcoin Dummies, an educational initiative, and have organized Bitcoin meetups in Vienna and Hong Kong.

What do you like most about OMSCS, and why?

The network. OMSCS is not an easy program, and most students are full-time professionals who are choosing to commit their limited time to something difficult. That self-selection creates an incredible community of proactive, technically capable people. For example, when I posted a research collaboration opportunity on Ed Discussion, I received around 10 applications from capable individuals worldwide within days. That collaboration led to our paper being published and presented at IEEE ICBC 2026. The reasonable tuition makes this accessible to anyone motivated enough to do the work, regardless of geography or background. And we can even meet these people in person if we attend the graduation ceremony in the U.S. In my experience, OMSCS is the best community on earth right now for meeting doers, people who are both technically and mentally prepared to build something meaningful.

What research are you working on?

My current research focuses on making Proof of Reserves (PoR) more accessible. High-profile exchange failures like Mt. Gox and FTX demonstrated how devastating the lack of verifiable transparency can be for users who had no way to independently audit exchange solvency. Existing PoR systems, including Merkle-tree-based proofs and zero-knowledge approaches, remain difficult for everyday users to verify in practice, resulting in limited participation and weakened transparency. My paper, LPOR (https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08211), published at IEEE ICBC 2026, introduces a layered, usability-focused framework that separates lightweight user-side checks from auditor-level cryptographic verification, enabling non-technical users to verify inclusion and publicly recompute total liabilities with minimal friction. By lowering verification barriers, LPOR increases user participation and substantially improves the probability of detecting omitted liabilities.

As a follow-up, I'm working on Proof of Transaction (PoT), a framework that extends transparency to the transaction level on centralized crypto exchanges. The goal is to prevent non-backed transactions on CEXs by making trade execution verifiable without relying solely on the exchange's self-reporting. If you're interested in collaborating on either of these research directions, feel free to reach out.

What is something someone might be surprised to learn about you?

I wrote a Bitcoin minibook and distributed over 400 copies worldwide through Amazon. My economics background, particularly game theory, is what originally drew me to blockchain and I realized most people don't have an accessible entry point to understand why this technology matters. So I made one.

What are your plans after graduation?

After graduation, I plan to continue my blockchain research and contribute to pushing the industry toward greater financial transparency. My near-term focus is completing the LPOR open-source SDK and advancing Proof of Transaction research, which aims to bring verifiable transparency to the transaction level on centralized exchanges. Long-term, I want to help shape the direction of cryptographic auditing in the industry so that transparency becomes a standard expectation rather than an optional feature. I also want to keep lowering the technical barrier of understanding blockchain for normal people, because it's genuinely fun to make complex ideas accessible.

Tell us about why you feel the work that you do is significant and why it is important that you are the one doing it.

Centralized exchange failures keep happening: Mt. Gox in 2014, FTX in 2022, Bithumb's miscredit incident in 2026 where the exchange displayed balances it couldn't back. The transparency efforts and user protections in this industry simply haven't kept pace with market growth. As institutional adoption accelerates, Proof of Reserve is both technically critical and timely.

I've been focused on this problem for three years, bringing together an economics background, computer science training, and rigorous professional engineering experience. This topic isn't highly demanded right now because of the complex incentive dynamics between users, exchanges, and regulators, which makes it difficult to productize. But I feel the gap in the system clearly, and that's exactly why I keep working on it. Someone needs to build the infrastructure for financial transparency before the next collapse, not after. I believe this work will matter, and I'm willing to keep pushing it forward until the rest of the industry catches up.