$6M Bounty Paid to White Hat Hacker Likely Averts Sizable DeFi Hack

Developers behind the Aurora protocol acknowledged they should have spotted the vulnerability much earlier

by Tiago Varzim /
article-image

Blockworks exclusive art by axel Rangel

share
  • No user funds were lost or stolen before the loophole was discovered
  • Up to $200 million worth of Aurora users’ funds could have been hacked if this bug wasn’t fixed

It was almost the next market-moving DeFi hack. 

Aurora, an Ethereum Virtual machine built on the NEAR Protocol, recently paid a $6 million reward to a so-called white hat hacker for identifying a key bug. 

The hacker, known as pwning.eth, uncovered in April a critical vulnerability in Aurora’s system, which could have jeopardized up to $200 million of funds. Virtual machines power smart contracts, or transactions executed in code on the blockchain without intermediaries, on Ethereum. Aurora paid the bounty through the Immunefi platform. 

It marks one of the largest-ever known bounty payouts in DeFi (decentralized finance) history. Last month, crypto bridge Wormhole — which connects different blockchains — paid $10 million to an ethical security hacker that also discovered a bug through Immunefi’s platform.

“Such a vulnerability should have been discovered at an earlier stage of the [defense] pipeline and we have already started improving our methods to achieve that in the future,” Frank Braun, Aurora’s head of security, said in a statement Tuesday. 

Added Braun: “However this event ultimately proves that our security mechanisms work.”

The bug was initially flagged via Immunefi — crucially, before any funds were stolen. Aurora’s bounty program with Immunefi was launched in April 2022, with rewards ranging from $1,000 to $6 million, depending on severity. 

Jonah Michaels, a spokesperson for Immunefi, told Blockworks that at “a time of distrust in the markets, it’s important more than ever for Web3 projects to show that they take security seriously.”

On Immunefi’s platform, security researchers review code and disclose vulnerabilities. Through its programs with DeFi projects, Immunefi said it paid over $40 million in bounties to friendly hackers — claiming to have prevented over $20 billion in potential damages.

Aurora’s goal is to provide application developers the means to operate on Ethereum-compatible platforms under the governance of the decentralized Aurora DAO. Aurora’s scaling solution is currently responsible for $373 million of NEAR’s $786 million in total value locked, according to data provider DefiLlama.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.jpg

Research

Figure, founded by former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, has emerged as a leader in onchain RWAs, with ~$17.5B publicly tokenized. The platform’s ecosystem volume is growing ~40% YoY as it expands beyond HELOCs into student loans, DSCR loans, unsecured loans, bankruptcy claims, and more. Operationally, Figure cuts average loan production cost by ~93% and compresses median funding time from ~42 days to ~10, creating a durable speed-and-cost advantage.

article-image

The Ethereum co-founder suggested LINEA holders would be eligible for other airdrops in cryptic tweet

article-image

The layer-2’s biggest release yet brings benefits — but a post-upgrade outage caused a chain reorg

article-image

Crypto is shifting into risk-on mode — pump.fun dominates meme activity, while Lido leans on treasury maneuvers

article-image

If the president breaks the Fed, he’ll own the budget problems

article-image

Combining Franklin Templeton’s tokenization expertise with Binance’s trading infrastructure could speed crypto adoption, companies say

article-image

The firm’s upcoming filing comes as competition heats up over the USDH stablecoin