a16z-backed lending crypto protocol Compound Finance unveils $1m in bug bounty

Compound Finance has launched a $1 million bug bounty program on Immunefi to strengthen the security of its protocol.

Cryptocurrency lending protocol Compound Finance has launched a bug bounty program in partnership with Immunefi, offering rewards of up to $1 million for identifying and fixing system vulnerabilities.

In a Medium blog announcement on Thursday, December 12, Immunefi said its bug bounty program is open to security researchers who can find issues in the protocol. The blockchain security firm noted that the size of the reward depends on the severity of the bug, with critical bugs earning up to $1 million, while lower-level issues are rewarded with smaller amounts starting from $1,000.

“All rewards are issued in USD but paid in COMP tokens; “This reinforces Compound’s commitment to a secure and transparent defi ecosystem.”

Immunity

Founded in 2017 by Robert Leshner and Geoffrey Hayes, Compound Finance is a decentralized finance protocol that allows users to borrow and lend cryptocurrencies. The platform has received support from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Bain Capital Ventures and Polychain Capital. Compound is distributed across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum.

In October 2023, a fork of Compound called the Onyx Protocol was exploited due to a vulnerability in code inherited from Compound. The attack exploited a known rounding error in the protocol’s design and allowed the attackers to siphon $2.1 million from the system. But Compound itself has not faced direct abuse of this nature.