Solana client Firedancer introduces a vulnerability submission fee, requiring 1 SOL to be burned for each report.

October 27: Jump Crypto's Solana client Firedancer has updated its bug bounty program rules, requiring researchers to permanently burn 1 SOL, worth approximately $100, for each vulnerability report submitted. Regardless of whether the report is invalid, out of scope, or a duplicate of an existing vulnerability, the fee is non-refundable; reports without the SOL burn will not be eligible for rewards.

This move aims to address the surge in AI-generated vulnerability reports. In an audit competition held from April 9 to May 9 with a total prize pool of $1 million, 162 researchers submitted a total of 809 reports, but ultimately only 127 independent security issues were identified, with nearly half of the valid reports being duplicates. Jump believes that AI agents were involved in the discovery or writing of almost all reports.

Jump Crypto's Ishan Bhatt previously stated that AI has lowered the cost of finding vulnerabilities, but reviewing vulnerabilities remains highly resource-intensive. A large number of duplicate or non-exploitable reports once caused the review queue to backlog to 299 submissions, forcing engineers to spend more time verifying issues and affecting the investigation and remediation of real vulnerabilities.

At the same time, Jump has also increased bug bounties: before November 20, eligible vulnerability rewards will be doubled from the standard amount; for vulnerabilities in Solana's new voting system Alpenglow, rewards can be up to triple, with critical-severity vulnerabilities eligible for up to $300,000.