'Historic' bug bounty as decentralized crypto exchange prepares upgrade

Uniswap Labs, the developer of Uniswap, one of the largest decentralized crypto exchanges, has offered a $15.5 million bug bounty to coders who can identify vulnerabilities in the platform's upcoming new version.

The team claims that the bounty is "the largest in history." However, there’s a catch – coders seeking to uncover vulnerabilities in V4 of the Uniswap Protocol and claim the multimillion-dollar bounty will face competition from multiple audits and hundreds of researchers who have already scrutinized the code for errors.

According to the protocol’s developers, V4 underwent nine audits, while 500 researchers participated in a $2.35 million security competition.

"No critical vulnerabilities were found," Uniswap Labs stated, emphasizing that the $15.5 million bounty is "an extra step" to ensure the protocol's security.

Reports of potential vulnerabilities must be submitted within 24 hours of discovery and remain confidential until the issue is resolved. Certain issues are excluded from the bounty program, such as bugs in third-party code, brute force attacks, vulnerabilities caused by extreme market volatility, and more.

Payouts depend on the severity of a discovered vulnerability and range from $10,000 to $15.5 million.

"The aggregate, maximum amount of payouts for Uniswap V4 contract code is $44,400,000," the team said, adding that payout amounts will be determined based on the order of submission.

Uniswap operates across multiple blockchains, with the Ethereum (ETH) deployment being the largest. As of the last 24 hours, the Ethereum version boasts a daily trading volume of over $1.7 billion, lists 1,441 coins, and supports 2,080 trading pairs.

According to Uniswap Labs, the fourth iteration of the protocol transforms it into a developer platform, unlocks new market structures, and supports additional assets.

Immunefi, a major crypto bounty platform, claims to have paid $110 million in bounties to date, with another $181 million still available.