LayerZero and Immunefi launch largest crypto bug bounty program with as much as $15M in rewards

LayerZero Labs, the crew behind cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero, has partnered with bug bounty and safety companies platform Immunefi to launch a $15 million bug bounty for its protocol, Bryan Pellegrino, co-founder and CEO of LayerZero, solely informed starcrypto.

The bug bounty alliance will provide a most reward of $15 million for every new vulnerability discovered by white hat hackers. The platform has introduced bug bounties prior to now, however none so massive, Pellegrino mentioned.

The $15 million most reward additionally makes this the biggest bug bounty program within the crypto ecosystem, surpassing MakerDAO’s $10 million program.

“We find the money for to pay out loads of bounties. The safety of the protocol comes earlier than the rest,” Pellegrino mentioned. The reward cash will come from the fairness entity of LayerZero Labs, Pellegrino added.

Immunefi says it gives safety companies for greater than $60 billion in person funds throughout crypto-based tasks and firms like Polygon, Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap, MakerDAO and Optimism. It has paid out over $75 million in rewards for bug bounties thus far.

Final month, LayerZero raised $120 million in a Sequence B spherical at a $3 billion valuation. In contrast to Internet 2.0 messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, its messaging protocol lets customers ship several types of messages between blockchains, like cross-chain interactions, eliminating the necessity for intermediaries. LayerZero connects over 30 mainnet blockchains, together with two non-Ethereum Digital Machines (EVMs) and Aptos.

Previously 12 months, the crypto ecosystem misplaced about $9.33 billion to exploits, hacks and scams, with a bit of below $1 billion recovered, in line with De.Fi’s REKT database.

Over $3.9 billion was “misplaced” final 12 months, in line with Immunefi’s Crypto Losses 2022 report. Whereas which may appear to be a whopping quantity of capital to lose observe of, it’s 51.2% lower than 2021, when over $8 billion was stolen, the report discovered.

In 2022, nearly all of losses, or $3.77 billion, have been as a consequence of hacks throughout 134 particular incidents. About $175 million was misplaced to fraud throughout 34 incidents in the identical time-frame.

Launched in March 2022, LayerZero has seen transaction quantity of over $15 billion in its 14 months up to now, Pellegrino mentioned. Since its inception, the messaging protocol has “by no means had a safety exploit or hack,” he added.

LayerZero spent about $5 million on auditing final 12 months to make sure its safety, and it goals to observe a course of to make sure its code’s safety earlier than it’s launched, Pellegrino mentioned.

Regardless that the market sees fewer losses, the numbers being misplaced are nonetheless large. In March, hackers stole round $200 million from crypto lending platform Euler Finance. Whereas this appears like some huge cash — and it’s — it’s solely the Twenty sixth-largest crypto theft ever, De.Fi information confirmed.

“For anybody constructing within the house, safety ought to be the precedence above all else,” Pellegrino mentioned. “In case you don’t have good safety, ultimately you may be hacked.”