Bug bounty quadruples for Ethereum network — up to $1M payouts ahead of Merge

Published at: Aug. 24, 2022

The Ethereum Foundation has announced it will be increasing the network’s bug bounty payouts fourfold ahead of the blockchain’s transition to Proof-of-Stake.

In a Wednesday blog post, the Ethereum Foundation said between Aug. 24 and Sept. 8, all “Merge-related bounties for vulnerabilities” will be quadrupled for white hats testing the network. According to the foundation, identifying “critical bugs” — those that have a high impact or likelihood of a high impact on the blockchain — will be worth up to $1 million. The bounty program also allows submissions for low, medium, and high risk bugs.

• Merge Bug Bounty Bonus: There is a 4X MULTIPLIER between now and 08 September on all bounties and vulnerabilities, with critical bugs worth up to $1mm USD• See full post for updated Execution Layer (EL) and Consensus Layer (CL) client links, more on The Merge, and an FAQ

— Joseph Schweitzer | (@JBSchweitzer) August 24, 2022

As part of the transition to Proof-of-Stake, the foundation said the Ethereum Network “must first be activated on the Beacon Chain with the Bellatrix upgrade,” an event expected to happen on Sept. 6, with the Merge likely following between Sept. 10-20. Core developers previously announced a tentative Merge date of Sept. 15 when the Total Terminal Difficulty, or TTD — the difficulty of the final mined block — will trigger the end of Proof-of-Work and the start of Proof-of-Stake.

“The incremental difficulty added per block is dependent on the network hash rate which is volatile,” said the foundation. “If more hash rate joins the network, TTD will be reached sooner. Similarly, if hash rate leaves the network, TTD will be reached later."

The foundation added that Ether (ETH) holders and users largely did not need to take any action prior to the Merge other than to “be on the lookout for scams.” Mining will no longer be possible following the transition, while stakers and node operators will both need to run an execution layer client, with the latter doing so with a consensus layer client.

In July 2020, the Ethereum Foundation announced it had launched public “attack networks” for Ethereum 2.0 for white hats to attempt to exploit potential issues in the clients, offering a $5,000 bounty at the time. However, in August 2021, a vulnerability affecting earlier versions of one of Ethereum's software clients Geth caused more than half the network’s nodes to split. The Merge will require the latest version of Geth as an execution client.

Related: MakerDAO launches biggest ever bug bounty with $10M reward

Other projects have offered up to $1 million or mo in bug bounties aimed at finding exploits resulting in the theft ofor risk of losing millions, as Sky Mavis did in April 2022 following a $600-million hack on the Ronin Network. In June, Ethereum bridging and scaling solution Aurora paid a $6-million bounty to a while hat hacker who discovered a critical bug.

Tags
Ethereum
Business
Developers
Proof-Of-Stake
Proof-Of-Work
Related Posts
Bitmain’s new Ether ASIC mining rig may not fix GPU shortage after all
Cryptocurrency mining rig manufacturer Bitmain announced the pending release of a new Ether (ETH) miner on Friday. The Antminer E9 model is an application-specific integrated circuit chip that will run on the Ethereum blockchain’s Ethash algorithm. No official release date has been announced for the E9 yet, however, the machine’s arrival may not be as impactful as first suspected. The rig faces competition in the form of Nvidia’s CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) range of GPUs designed specifically for crypto mining. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s scheduled move away from proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism could mean the E9’s utility will be short-lived. …
Technology / April 16, 2021
Ethereum testnet Beacon Chain launched and ready for trial merge
The Sepolia testnet Beacon Chain has gone live, setting the stage for its merge dress rehearsal to give Ethereum network developers valuable technical insights. Upon merging with its dedicated Beacon Chain, the Sepolia testnet will begin reaching consensus using proof-of-stake (PoS) rather than proof-of-work (PoW), which will provide data on what may happen when the Ethereum mainnet performs its merge. The Ethereum Sepolia Beacon Chain has been deployed! The Merge is coming https://t.co/IuJBnFp0Xx — Crypto-Gucci.eth ᵍᵐ (@CryptoGucci) June 20, 2022 The exact date of the Sepolia merge has not been determined. Testnet merges are essential for Ethereum developers and independent …
Ethereum / June 21, 2022
Coming sooner: ETH devs move up the date for Merge
The Ethereum Merge may be coming sooner than planned, after core developers announced a tentative Merge date of Sept. 15, which will see the blockchain transition to Proof-of-Stake. The Ethereum mainnet Merge date came into view after core developers such as Tim Beiko and Prysmatic Labs co-founder Terence Tsao agreed in an Aug. 11 developer call it would be when Total Terminal Difficulty (TTD) hits 58750000000000000000000. This was confirmed in a Github post titled "Tentative mainnet TTD" which was committed to by Beiko on Aug. 11. While the exact date and TTD could be still be changed, the successes of …
Adoption / Aug. 12, 2022
ETH whales move holdings onto exchanges before Merge
Ethereum blockchain is slated for one of the biggest updates since its inception, as it will transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mining consensus from its current proof-of-work (PoW) one. The Merge date is scheduled for Sept. 15, after the successful Goerli test net integration — the final test net merger before the actual transition. Ether (ETH), the native token, was on a bullish surge after the announcement of the Merge date in July with the ETH price rising to a new six-month high of over $2,000 but failed to consolidate the critical resistance. The bullish enthusiasm in terms of token …
Ethereum / Aug. 25, 2022
'Green ETH' narrative to drive investment and adoption, says pundits
The shedding of Ethereum’s energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) system is expected to see Ether (ETH) “flow into the institutional world,” according to a number of fund managers and co-founders. On Sept. 15, Ethereum officially transitioned to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, which is expected to cut energy consumption used by the network by 99.95%, according to the Ethereum Foundation. The upgrade effectively ended the need for the Ethereum network to rely on miners and energy-guzzling mining hardware to validate transactions and build new blocks, as these functions are now replaced by validators who “stake” their ETH. "The merge will reduce worldwide …
Adoption / Sept. 16, 2022