My Quantum Thoughts

My name is Or Sattath (in Hebrew: אור סתת) and I’m an associate professor at the Ben-Gurion Computer Science Department.

Previously, I was a postdoc at UC Berkeley, the Hebrew University and MIT. I finished my PhD. under the supervision of Prof. Dorit Aharonov at the Hebrew University, and Prof. Julia Kempe at Tel-Aviv University.

Research Interests

Quantum cryptography, complexity and algorithms. Theory of computer science at large.

Are you interested in doing a MSc., PhD.  or a post-doc in quantum cryptography? Send me an email. Full scholarships are available.

 Publications/Preprints

• The power of a single Haar random state: constructing and separating quantum pseudorandomness (abs, pdf)
  Boyang Chen, Andrea Coladangelo, Or Sattath. In the proceedings of EuroCrypt’25, and contributed talks at QIP’25 & QCrypt’24.
• 51% Attack via Difficulty Increase with a Small Quantum Miner (abs, pdf, YouTube1, YouTube2)
  Bolton Bailey, Or Sattath.
• Signatures From Pseudorandom States via ⊥-PRFs (abs, pdf)
  Mohammed Barhoush, Amit Behera, Lior Ozer, Louis Salvail, Or Sattath.
  In the proceedings of AsiaCrypt 2025.
• Pseudorandomness with Proof of Destruction and Applications (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Amit Behera,  Zvika Brakerski, Or Sattath, Omri Shmueli.
  Contributed talk at QCrypt’23, and in the proceedings of TCC’23.
• Protecting Quantum Procrastinators with Signature Lifting: A Case Study in Cryptocurrencies (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Or Sattath, Shai Wyborski.
  Contributed talk in the 2nd PQC Standardization & Migration Workshop.
• Public-Key Encryption with Quantum Keys (abs, pdf)
  Khashayar Barooti, Alex B. Grilo, Loïs Huguenin-Dumittan, Giulio Malavolta, Or Sattath, and Quoc-Huy Vu, Michael Walter.
  In the proceedings of TCC’23.
• Uncloneable Cryptography (abs, pdf)
  Or Sattath. In Communications of the ACM.
• General Partially Fair Multi-Party Computation with VDFs (abs, pdf)
  Bolton Bailey, Andrew Miller, Or Sattath.
• Quantum Prudent Contracts with Applications to Bitcoin (abs, pdf, slides)
  Or Sattath.
• Uncloneable Decryptors from Quantum Copy-Protection (abs, pdf)
  Or Sattath, Shai Wyborski.
• Quantum Amnesia Leaves Cryptographic Mementos: A Note On Quantum Skepticism (abs, pdf)
  Or Sattath, Uriel Shinar.
• Revisiting the Properties of Money (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Isaiah Hull, Or Sattath. In Journal of Economic Surveys. A short version appeared as a SUERF policy brief, and in the following webinar.
• Noise-Tolerant Quantum Tokens for MAC (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Amit Behera, Or Sattath, Uriel Shinar.
  Contributed talk in TQC’22.
• Almost Public Quantum Coins (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Amit Behera and Or Sattath
  Contributed talk in QIP’21.
• A Quantum Money Solution to the Blockchain Scalability Problem (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Andrea Coladangelo and Or Sattath.
  Contributed talk in QCrypt’20. In Quantum journal.
• Semi-Quantum Money (abs, pdf, slides)
  Roy Radian and Or Sattath
  In the Journal of Cryptology (free view-only version) and in the proceeding of AFT’19.
• On Quantum Advantage in Information Theoretic Single-Server PIR (abs, pdf, YouTube)
  Dorit Aharonov, Zvika Brakerski, Kai-Min Chung, Ayal Green, Ching-Yi Lai, and Or Sattath
  In the proceedings of  Eurocrypt’19.
• On the insecurity of quantum Bitcoin mining (abs, pdf, YouTube1, YouTube2, slides)
  Or Sattath
  In the International Journal of Information Security. Contributed talk in QCrypt’18.
• Redesigning Bitcoin’s fee market (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides)
  Ron Lavi, Or Sattath and Aviv Zohar
  In ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation, the proceedings of WWW’19, and contributed talk in the Scaling Bitcoin workshop 2017.
• Quantum coin hedging, and a counter measure (abs, pdf)
  Maor Ganz, Or Sattath
  In the proceedings of TQC’17.
• On preparing ground states of gapped Hamiltonians: An efficient Quantum Lovász Local Lemma (abs, pdf, YouTube)
  András Gilyén, Or Sattath
  Contributed talk in QIP 2017. In the proceedings of FOCS 2017.
• Quantum Tokens for Digital Signatures (abs, pdf, YouTube, slides, poster (best poster award, QIP’14))
  Shalev Ben-David, Or Sattath
  In Quantum journal. Contributed talk in QCrypt 2017.
• When a local Hamiltonian must be frustration-free (abs, pdf, slides)
  Or Sattath, Siddhardh C. Morampudi, Christopher R. Laumann, Roderich Moessner
  In the PNAS.
• Quantum Max-flow/Min-cut (abs, pdf)
  Shawn X. Cui, Michael H. Freedman, Or Sattath, Richard Stong, Greg Minton
  In the Journal of Mathematical Physics.
• An adaptive attack on Wiesner’s quantum money
  (abs, pdf, YouTube, Slides)
  Aharon Brodutch, Daniel Nagaj , Or Sattath, Dominique Unruh
  Contributed talk in QCrypt 2014. In Quantum Information and Computation.
• An Almost Sudden Jump in Quantum Complexity (abs, pdf)
  Or Sattath
  In Quantum Information & Computation.
• The complexity of the Separable Hamiltonian Problem (abs, pdf, YouTube, video, slides)
  André Chailloux, Or Sattath
  In CCC 2012.
  Contributed talk in QIP 2011
• A Constructive Quantum Lovász Local Lemma for Commuting Projectors (abs, pdf)
  Itai Arad, Or Sattath
  In Quantum Information & Computation.
  See also:
  Three Proofs of a Constructive Commuting Quantum Lovasz Local Lemma (abs, pdf)
  Toby Cubitt, Martin Schwarz, Frank Verstraete, Or Sattath and Itai Arad
  Contributed talk in QIP 2011.
• A Quantum Lovász Local Lemma (abs, pdf, ppt)
  Andris Ambainis, Julia Kempe, Or Sattath
  In the Journal of the ACM, Invited talk in QIP 2010, and contributed talk in STOC 2010.
• On the power of a unique quantum witness(abs,  pdf)
  Rahul Jain, Iordanis Kerenidis, Greg Kuperberg, Miklos Santha, Or Sattath and Shengyu Zhang
  In Innovations in Computer Science 2010, QIP 2010 and in the Theory of Computing.
• The Pursuit For Uniqueness: Extending Valiant-Vazirani Theorem to the Probabilistic and Quantum Settings (abs,pdf)
  Dorit Aharonov, Michael Ben-Or, Fernando G.S.L. Brandao, Or Sattath
  In Quantum journal.
• My master’s thesis, which is an extended version of the above paper.

Book

Quantum Technology for Economists

by Isaiah Hull , Or Sattath , Eleni Diamanti and Göran Wendin. Published by Springer, 2024.

A preliminary draft is available on the arXiv.

Service

Microcrypt Zoo — a graph that presents the relations between primitives in Microcrypt: those that are potentially weaker than one-way functions.

Program committees: Eurocrypt’26, QCrypt’23, QIP’21, QCrypt’20, The 1st Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT’19), QCrypt’18

Organized the tutorial “Quantum Computing Essentials for Financial Cryptographers” with Mark Zhandry, held in conjunction with Financial Cryptography (FC’22). Slides: Part 1, Part , Part 3, Part 4.

Co-organizer of  The Mathematics of Quantum Computation workshop, IIAS, 2019.

Students

Current group members:

• Amit Behera (PhD.)
• Ofer Casper (PhD.)

Alumni:

• Shahar Oded Friedmann (MSc.)
• Shai Wyborski (PhD.)
• Uriel Shinar (MSc.)
• Roy Radian (MSc.)

Miscellaneous Recorded Talks

Quantum Mining, Quantum Bitcion Summit, Presidio Bitcoin, San-Francisco, 2025.

ZK-Podcast, basic introduction to quantum computing, quantum cryptography, and discussing quantum attacks and opportunities quantum cryptography opens for cryptocurrencies – Part I, Part II

Unclonable cryptography – a modern perspective on Wiesner’s work, Tel-Aviv University physics colloquium. Slides.

Quantum money and some of  its extension, QICF’20. Slides.

Tutorial about quantum money, QCrypt’18. Slides.

The very basic of quantum computing: one and two qubits, The Mathematics of Quantum Computation. workshop, IIAS, 2019. Slides.

Bitcoin vs. quantum money, Israeli Bitcoin meetup, 2014. Slides.

Contact  Information

email: “mylastname”@gmail.com.

Alon Building (bldg. #37), office 306.

Office number: (+972) 08-6428081, Fax number: (+972) 08-6428823

Snail mail Address:
Dr. Or Sattath
Department of Computer Science
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Beer-Sheva, Israel 84105