[14] Kiayias has described how the problem of debt-ridden banks in Greece inspired him to concentrate his research on creating a blockchain to widen access to financial services using a digital "parallel currency".
[21] In 2022, he was one of four authors of a Crypto 2022 paper describing Ofelimos, a blockchain protocol with a consensus mechanism based on proof of useful work (PoUW).
In this mechanism, work done in validating the blockchain is used to solve complex problems that could be used for industrial applications, such as planning routes for delivery vehicles.
[27] In 2006, he led a team that discovered security flaws in Diebold AccuVote-OS machines (the “Optical Scan Report”) in a study supported by the Office of the Connecticut Secretary of the State.
[28][29][30][31] In 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that Kiayias, by then professor of cryptography and computer security at the University of Athens, had led a team that had developed an encrypted electronic voting system for Greece.
[33][34][35] The event was cited by Joe FitzPatrick MSP, the Minister for Parliamentary Business, in a written answer about the Scottish government’s digital strategy and its work on online voting systems.
[37] A Fortune magazine article in the lead-up to the 2020 US presidential elections discussed the legal and logistical challenges of implementing an online voting system for the country.