ni8mare

Doing my bit towards smart contract security | DM for audits |
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[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

Some really good results for us!!!

Collaborated with @OxAnmol for this contest

Learnt a lot from this one.

Thank you so much for the opportunity @cantinaxyz @InfraredFinance

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

@Shaping_Myself @slayersecurity

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

We had a lot of fun writing this one. Hope you like it too!

[Slayer Security @slayersecurity]

https://t.co/ESefL7iXDI

[Dacian @DevDacian]

May not seem like it now, but glory days for DeFi & smart contract security are coming.

Teams rapidly embracing emerging tech will build safer, more defensive & hardened protocols than previously possible with lower total spend.

It's always darkest before dawn.

[Raiders @__Raiders]

when u rely only on AI for finding bugs, SKILL issues 😂

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

@0xWeb3boy Congrats ser!!! 🔥🔥🔥

[Orion Finance @OrionFinanceAI]

Orion has officially joined the @ethereum Audit Subsidy Program!

Security has and will always be our top priority. As we prepare for our next phase of growth, this subsidy will help us ensure our codebase meets the highest security standards in the ecosystem.

[FEAR GOD @FEARGODMINDSET]

until death, all defeat is psychological

[Slayer Security @slayersecurity]

We are about to finalize the audit for @ammomarkets , and uncovered some interesting edge cases around staking contracts and mint flow.

The report will be public soon...

If you are a protocol with a tight budget and need a quality audit before launch, DM Us.

[DadeKuma @DadeKuma]

Please, don't let C4 die 🙏

[Sir. M. Shade⒮🌴 @0xShaedyW]

🚨 Cantina Apex is officially the top spammer in web3 security.

65 reports to MetaMask, 5 valid.
19 to Coinbase, 8 valid.
40 to Anthropic, 4 valid.

24 valid out of 167 closed: 14.37% accuracy.

This is the future? A Spammertozoa?

[Slayer Security @slayersecurity]

Excited to announce our audit partnership with @AmmoMarkets 🤝

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

🫡🫡🫡

[Orion Finance @OrionFinanceAI]

Bug Bounty Week 3 📌

This week, we've processed 14 new submissions.

The updated scoreboard:
- Total Reports: 75
- New Findings: +4 Lows identified and mitigated.

Every submission helps us harden our architecture as we approach our final audit.

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

Just so sad 💔

[Code4rena @code4rena]

After careful consideration, we’ve made the decision to wind down @code4rena. This community has meant a great deal to everyone who has been part of building it, and sharing this news is not easy.

[Orion Finance @OrionFinanceAI]

Bug Bounty Week 2 🛠️

The updated scoreboard:
- Total Reports: 61
- New Findings: +2 Mediums identified and mitigated.

We remain committed to security, which is why we continue to invite the world’s best researchers to stress-test our architecture before our final audit report.

[0xAnmol @0xAnmol_]

We can't accept daily hacks as the norm. DeFi security is a necessity, not a luxury.

​@dkni8mare and I have teamed up to launch @slayersecurity.

Our mission: provide high-quality, affordable security reviews for small teams without draining their runway.

​What are you doing to help secure DeFi?

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

Grateful for the opportunity @OrionFinanceAI 🫡

[Slayer Security @slayersecurity]

Proud to be a part of Orion's private bounty. We will put every bit of our security knowledge to uncover bugs before the attacker does.

[DAN KOE @thedankoe]

Normalize disappearing for an extended period of time to do a factory reset on your focus and creativity.

[ni8mare @dkni8mare]

@HypePoolX Hello team, how can we contact you?

[0xAnmol @0xAnmol_]

We're working to protect web3 at https://t.co/uzHpjoF0nr. The issue had 54 duplicates, but only one valid issue in the codebase.

More results coming soon.

[Immunefi @immunefi]

Most security firms are quietly moving away from audit competitions.

This is one of the biggest mistakes happening in crypto security right now.

There is a simple way to think about audit value: what does it cost to find a critical vulnerability?

We looked at the actual data on what it costs to find critical bugs in crypto, and the numbers are not surprising.

Finding a critical vulnerability in an audit competition costs $6,548 on average. The exact same severity bug through a bug bounty program costs $114,000. That is 17x more expensive for the same result.

Now look at the traditional audit model.

Some top firms charge $100 per line of code. Others charge as high as $25,000 per auditor per week. A single engagement can easily run $200k to $500k+, and you are getting maybe 2 to 4 people looking at your code.

But cost per critical is not even the most interesting part.

The interesting part is the structure of who is looking at your code.

When you hire a firm, you get 2 to 4 auditors. Maybe they are great. Maybe one of them is having a bad week. You are making a concentrated bet on a small number of people.

An audit competition attracts hundreds of security researchers. These are some of the best hackers, people who have found real vulnerabilities in major protocols.
These hundreds of researchers are now armed with AI tools. They understand codebases faster. They write PoCs faster. They find bugs that would have taken DAYS in just hours.

Think about what that means.

You are not just getting hundreds of humans. You are getting hundreds of AI-augmented humans, each running their own workflow, each with their own intuition about where bugs hide.

The scaling dynamics are extraordinary.

The firms moving away from competitions are optimizing for predictable revenue, not for their clients’ best outcomes.

That is understandable from a business perspective.

But if you are a project choosing where to spend your security budget, you should optimize for bugs found per dollar spent.

Audit competitions now also have scaling pots. The prize pool grows with the scope of the codebase.

This aligns incentives in a way that fixed-fee engagements never can.

But what about AI spam, low-quality submissions, and the time it takes to triage all of those submissions?

Immunefi is addressing these with mechanisms like pay-to-submit, managed triage, and AI triaging agents, which are already showing very strong promise.

The best security strategy is not either or.

But if you have a limited budget and you want the most eyes, the most diverse skill sets, and the best cost per finding ratio, audit competitions are still the obvious choice.