Introducing the Safe Deployer: How Audit Competitions are Transforming Web3 Security Measures

Revolutionizing Smart Contract Audits — A Game-Changing Approach That Saves Time, Money, and Attracts the Best in the Field

TL;DR: Audit competitions are revolutionizing the world of Web3 security, offering a dynamic, cost-effective, and time-efficient solution for smart contract auditing. By transforming the traditional auditing approach, they ensure enhanced security through a community-driven process. With audit competitions, you retain full control over your budget, attract top auditing talent, and gain valuable insights from the Web3 community, all while preparing your project for a robust and secure launch. Discover the benefits of this innovative solution and embrace a new standard in smart contract security. Start your audit competition now.

Understanding the Current Situation

In the rapidly evolving world of Web3, the security of smart contracts is paramount. Today, the standard protocol involves coding, executing an audit, and launching. The audit serves as a necessary checkpoint, a thorough inspection to identify and rectify any vulnerabilities before going live.

Identifying the Challenges

However, this approach is not without its flaws. One audit may not be enough to spot all potential loopholes, and additional audits can prove significantly costly. Moreover, market volatility can lead to fluctuations in auditing prices. This can leave you paying a premium without any guarantee of a robust audit. In essence, you could be shelling out significant resources for an unknown outcome.

A Revolutionary Solution: Audit Competitions

Enter audit competitions — an innovative, game-changing approach to this predicament. An audit competition hosted on an on-chain platform provides an exciting, crowd-sourced solution to the problem. It allows you to have full control over your budget while opening the gates for a multitude of auditors to vet your project.

How Audit Competitions Work

Audit competitions work on a simple yet powerful model — rewarding results, not efforts. You, as a project owner, allocate budgets according to the severity level of potential vulnerabilities. The budget is retained if no flaws are found. It’s a model that ensures you pay only for value added to your project, giving you confidence in your investment.

These competitions typically draw over 300 skilled auditors who partake in a race against time, diligently hunting for bugs to ensure your project’s safety. The model operates on a first-come, first-served basis, thus encouraging quick and quality submissions. Each successful auditor is rewarded for their findings, fostering a competitive environment that brings out the best in auditors.

In addition, the evaluation process is designed for efficiency. With rewards given to the first submitter, duplicate submissions are avoided. This not only streamlines the process but also saves valuable time.

Audited by: Trail of Bits

Hats Audit competition: 11/5/23 -18/5/23

Results: 3 High vulnerability, 4 Medium vulnerability, and 11 Lows

Dorde from Raft Finance:

“It was great working with the Hats team, as well as all participants. We got a very good outcome, which helped us to make the protocol way safer. “

Attracting the Best in the Business

Audit competitions are a beacon for top-tier auditors in the Web3 space. The model doesn’t dilute rewards among participants, meaning the first to discover a vulnerability takes the full reward. This direct correlation between skill and reward attracts high-quality auditors, offering your project the best auditing minds in the field.

Audited by: Solidity Finance

Hats Audit competition: 8/3/23 -22/3/23

Results: 18 Medium vulnerability and Gas saving

Lodestar team:

“Big thank you to the Hats team for organizing this competition. We had some great submissions and identified several medium-level bugs that were missed in our first audit. Having many skilled researchers look over the code has proven to be a successful endeavor. “

The Committee as Judge: Empowering Developers

Adding another significant layer to the value of audit competitions is the utilization of your own committee as the judge of submissions. This approach leverages the intimate understanding your team has of your code. After all, who knows your code better than the ones who created it?

By receiving, reviewing, and classifying reports, your developers gain invaluable insight into the possible backdoors in your code. This process not only helps spot vulnerabilities but also strengthens your team’s overall understanding of your project’s security aspect. Engaging with submitters encourages a deeper grasp of potential issues, further fortifying your project. This method also expedites the evaluation of reports, leading to quicker resolution and remediation times.

Audited by: Omnicia

Hats Audit competition: 24/4/23 -8/5/23

Results: 3 Medium vulnerability, 11 Low vulnerability and Gas saving

Gravita team:

“We are grateful to the Hats team for organizing this competition and all the auditors who participated. We really appreciated having so many eyes on our code and we identified some bugs or improvements that were missed in our audit round. “

Full Control and Flexibility on Your Terms

In the high-stakes race to launch, control and flexibility are key. Especially after an initial audit round, you need a tool that lets you control the process while being adaptable to evolving needs. Audit competitions provide just that — absolute control with the flexibility to adjust parameters at every step. From determining the budget for different severity levels to making decisions on submissions, you’re at the helm of your project’s security audit process.

In essence, an audit competition serves as a dynamic and responsive tool, enabling you to leverage the expertise of a global auditing community while maintaining full control over your project’s security. This approach marries the collective intelligence of the Web3 community with the intimate knowledge of your project, creating a powerful, cost-effective solution that ensures the highest level of security for your launch. Take the leap today and empower your project with the power of an audit competition.

Hats Audit competition: 14/2/23 -27/2/23

Results: 3 High vulnerability, 6 Medium vulnerability, 21 Low vulnerability.

Time is Everything: Swift, Easy, and Impactful

We understand the value of time in this rapidly evolving Web3 ecosystem. That’s why we’ve designed a solution that lets you set up and get your audit competition campaign off the ground within just 10 days before it starts. Yes, you heard that right!

• Quick and Easy Setup: The process is designed to be incredibly straightforward, requiring less than 30 minutes to get started. You don’t need to be a seasoned developer to set up your audit competition. We’ve made it as simple as possible so you can focus on what truly matters — fortifying your project’s security.
• On-chain Deployment: Embracing the essence of Web3, we utilize on-chain deployment. It aligns perfectly with our mission of providing a transparent, trustless, and permissionless platform.
• Engagement with the Web3 Community: More than just security audits, our platform invites the engaged, savvy Web3 users to interact with your project. These users can offer invaluable perspectives, contributing to the refinement of your idea before its launch.

Hats Audit Competitions in Numbers

As we embark on our 6th Audit competition at Hats, we’d like to provide you with some valuable insights from the previous five competitions. The total prize pools of these competitions amounted to an impressive $290k. Out of the total, $178k has been paid out to deserving winners, while an astounding $112k has been retained by the projects, directly contributing to their treasury.

At Hats, we strive to offer the best price/value ratio for security, and our fees reflect that commitment. Out of the $178k paid out in prize money, only $13k has been charged in fees, demonstrating our dedication to providing a cost-effective solution that doesn’t compromise on security.

In conclusion, audit competitions offer a unique blend of cost-effectiveness, enhanced security, and a streamlined process. They align perfectly with the principles of the Web3 ecosystem — decentralization, transparency, and fairness. If you’re in the race to ensure the safety of your project and want to leverage the collective intelligence of the Web3 auditing community, audit competitions are the way forward.

Let’s embrace this new narrative in Web3 security and join the audit competition revolution today!

Open an audit competition now → https://app.hats.finance/vault-editor/