Prof. Xiaofan LIU 劉肖凡

Scam Studies

• Our research applies large language models (LLMs), media studies, and psychological insights to better understand and combat online scams.
• Our joint project with China Unicom Global Ltd., “Pioneering Technology, Linking the World: Big Data and AI’s New Role in Scam Prevention” was recognised as one of thirteen Outstanding Cases of Jointly Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace by the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit 2024. News by CGTN
• Read more.

Web3

• Cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin), tokens issued on blockchain systems (e.g., USDT), and their derivative applications (e.g., RWAs), are the frontier of financial technology (FinTech). This frontier is also known as the Web3 industry. Our team does four lines of research in this area:
  1. Cryptocurrency Transaction Analysis from a Network Perspective. All cryptocurrencies' transactions are publicly recorded in blockchains. We analyze blockchain data to unfold a panorama of human behaviors.
  2. Decentralized Autonomous Organizations is a new way of online collaboration, where members make collaborative decisions with online deliberation and token-based voting. We analyze their social and transactional behavior to understand how humans may collaborate in the future.
  3. Cryptocurrencies, Web3 as well, may not be tamable by the current regulatory frameworks after all. However, rebuilding the conventional financial system with Web3-proven technologies might be possible. So, why not?
• We thank the RGC (and more importantly all the reviewers) for the support to our research project Balancing DAO Governance: The Interplay of Organizational Structure, Decision-making, and Sustainability and the ITC for supporting our commercialization efforts in the Laboratory for AI-Powered Financial Technologies Ltd.
• Media Coverage: The Spectacular Collapse of CryptoKitties, the First Big Blockchain Game, IEEE Spectrum, August 2022.
  

AIGC

• Our research group is actively exploring various applications of recent AIGC technologies, such as large language models, diffusion models, and agentic frameworks, to advance social science research and address practical issues.
• We express our gratitude to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their support of our project, "AI for Farmers: A Speech Dialog App for Pesticide Safe Use," with their Catalyzing Equitable Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Grand Challenges initiatives.

Dark Web

• The dark web are web services running on the darknet, which is a set of computer servers connected by and can only be accessed from encrypted networks. A common impression associated with the dark web is drug trading. But there is much more going on in that corner of the Internet. The dark web can also be considered an anonymous communication channel from the perspective of communication theory, underpinning human communication in an extremely covert environment.
• Try out dark web search engine https://hkaift.com/darkweb-search/

Data curation, analysis, and modeling for COVID-19

• Teamed with Prof. XU Xiao-Ke (Dalian Minzu University) and Prof. WU Ye (Beijing Normal University), we hand-coded daily COVID-19 case reports from Chinese local health commissions, from the first days of the pandemic, and extracted useful epidemiological information. We released the dataset on GitHub and figshare. The dataset has supported numerous publications in top-tier venues, including Science, Clinical Infectious Disease, and Emerging Infectious Disease. The Paper (澎湃) press also made a fabulous data visualization based on our data and won a major China data journalism award in 2021. Read our blog post for the story behind this massive dataset (and on the unreadiness of artificial intelligence in fighting COVID-19, as least in its early stages).
• We acknowledge the funding support from The International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) and the Grand Challenges (GC) initiative in their GC ICODA COVID-19 Data Science pilot initiative. Follow the progress of this project on The Global Health Network.
• 数字的游戏：辣评预测2020新型冠状病毒nCov传播规模的几项研究，2020年1月31日.

Book

• 刘肖凡, & 谢智刚. (2015). 知诸网: 网络科学及其在艺术、金融和社会学中的应用. 科学出版社, 北京.

Selected Papers

• [Scam Studies] Liu, X. F., Ai, Y., Jiang, L. C., Wang, X., & Wu, Y. (2024). Understanding the human element in scams: a multidisciplinary approach. Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research, 27(1), 9–24.. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228053.2024.2439192
• [Web3] Fan, J., Ai, Y., Liu, X. F.* (2024). DAO’s Governance Paradox: Balancing Organizational Structures for Business and Communal Goals. The 74st Annual International Communication Association Conference (ICA2024), June 2024. (Top Paper Award and Top Student Paper Award by the Organizational Communication Division at ICA 2024.)
• [Human Behavior] Liu, X. F., Wang, Z.-Z., Xu, X.-K., Wu, Y., Zhao, Z., Deng, H., Wang, P., Chao, N., & Huang, Y.-H. (2023). The shock, the coping, the resilience: Smartphone application use reveals COVID-19 lockdown effects on human behaviors. EPJ Data Science. 12, 17. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00391-9
• [Dark Web] Chen, Z., Jardine, E., Liu, X. F.*, & Zhu, J. J. H. (2022). Seeking Anonymity on the Internet: The Knowledge Accumulation Process and Global Usage of the Tor Network. New Media & Society, 26(2), 1074-1095. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211072201.
• [COVID-19] Liu, X. F., Xu, X. K., & Wu, Y. (2021). Mobility, exposure, and epidemiological timelines of COVID-19 infections in China outside Hubei province. Scientific Data, 8, 54. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00844-8

Full Publication List

• Web of Science
• Scopus
• Google Scholar
• CityU Scholar
• ORCID

Patents

• Liu, X. F., Fu, Z., Yan, J., "METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CLASSIFYING A CRYPTOCURRENCY ASSET", US Patent, Filed, No. 18/772,118; Hong Kong Short-Term Patent, Granted, No. HK30107829; US Patent, Published, No. US-2025-0378504-A1.
• 刘肖凡、李正龙，“一种基于在线社交平台群聊数据对群成员进行关联的系统及方法”，中国发明，专利号 ZL 2016 1 0482435.3, 授权日期2020年3月31日.
• 刘肖凡、李正龙，“基于在线社交平台群聊消息的群组间消息传播路径挖掘方法与系统”，中国发明，专利号 ZL 2017 1 01154048.7, 授权日期2020年8月11日.
• 蔡成委、韦志群、刘肖凡，“一种基于用户画像动态轨迹模型的广告推荐方法及系统”，中国发明，公开号 CN108665083A，公开日期2018年10月16日.
• 庆光蔚、王会方、丁树庆、冯月贵、刘肖凡、高逸夫、胡静波、冯文龙、韩郡业、张军、米涌、王建华、梁秉、方铭杰，“一种基于最小加权时间距离的电梯救援站点最优选址方法”，中国发明，专利号 ZL 2017 1 0236990.2, 授权日期2018年9月25日. （国家市场监管总局2020年度市场监管科研成果二等奖）

Essays and Notes

• RWA: Back to the Essence (RWA：正本清源)
• Who Will Have the Last Laugh in Hong Kong Stablecoins? (港元稳定币，谁能笑到最后？)
• The Illusion of KYC: A Flawed Foundation in Stablecoin Regulation (无用的KYC：稳定币监管之踵)
• 迷雾中探索新世界：Web3概念的社会建构, posted on 信报, 28 Nov, 2024.
• To Survive, a Blockchain Game must be a Game First, posted on South China Morning Post, 1 Sep, 2021.
• 还“数”于民：西方的 Web 改革浪潮及其与东方创新的潜在融合，第18届全国互联网与音视频广播发展研讨会 (NWC 2019)，嘉兴，2019年4月26日.
• 借天领地：广播网络能否破解区块链的“三元悖论”？，首届中国区块链技术大会，杭州，2018年11月25日. （以及我们的回答）

• COM3203 - Digital and Data Journalism for Bachelor students
• COM5507 - Social Media Data Acquisition and Processing for MA students
• COM5508 - Media Data Analytics for MACNM students
• COM8010 - Computational Social Science Methods for research students

• Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems
• Associate Editor, Frontiers in Blockchain
• Guest Editor, IET Blockchain
• Guest Editor, Frontiers in Physics
• Guest Editor, Mathematics