Hardhik Mohanty
Ph.D. Candidate, USC Machine Learning & Quantitative Research for DeFi
Research Interests
-
Machine Learning for Risk Modeling of Digital Assets
Learning from transaction data to model risk, detect fraud, and understand user behavior
-
Quantitative Modeling of Crypto Markets
Modeling crypto derivatives, liquidity, and risk-aware hedging
-
Mathematical Modeling of Stablecoins
Arbitrage, redemption, and market interactions that shape stablecoin peg stability
-
Prediction Markets for Crypto Volatility Forecasting
Using prediction-market signals to study and forecast cryptocurrency volatility
News
-
Passed my Ph.D. candidacy exam
-
Released our CRISP preprint on arXiv
“CRISP: Scalable Importance-Stratified Coresets for Imbalanced Tabular Learning”
arXiv
Work done with Coinbase. -
Received the Jenny Wang Excellence in Teaching Award from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering
-
New preprint on crypto volatility and prediction markets
“Do Prediction Markets Forecast Cryptocurrency Volatility? Evidence from Kalshi Macro Contracts.”
arXiv -
Paper accepted to IEEE ICBC 2026
“Who Restores the Peg? A Mean-Field Game Approach to Model Stablecoin Market Dynamics.”
arXiv -
Joined Coinbase as a part-time MLE
Building foundation risk models for users in DeFi markets using machine learning.
-
Teaching Assistant — EE 503 Probability
TA for the PhD-level probability course at USC, under Prof. Bart Kosko.
-
ML Engineer Intern at Coinbase
Worked on Coresets and Graph Machine Learning with Dr. Indrayana Rustandi.
-
Preprint — Survey on Zero-Knowledge Proofs
“A Survey on the Applications of Zero-Knowledge Proofs.” With R. Lavin, X. Liu, L. Norman, G. Zaarour, and B. Krishnamachari.
arXiv -
Paper in Frontiers in Blockchain
“Modeling and Analysis of Crypto-Backed Over-Collateralized Stable Derivatives in DeFi.” With Z. Feng and B. Krishnamachari.
Frontiers
Education
-
University of Southern California (USC)
Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical Engineering
–present
-
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur
Bachelor's and Master's in Electrical Engineering and Artificial Intelligence
–
Personal Interests
- Playing poker
- Playing football
- Strength training
- Photography