Firedancer, the Solana software built by Jump Crypto, now charges researchers 1 SOL per bug report to curb AI-assisted spam. The fee is nonrefundable, and Jump is temporarily raising rewards alongside it.
The team behind Firedancer has begun charging researchers 1 SOL, worth about $100, per submission. The aim is to cut spam and give engineers more time to investigate genuine security flaws.
The tokens must be burned, which permanently removes them from circulation. Under terms updated Monday, the cost stays nonrefundable even if a report is invalid, outside the program's scope or duplicates an earlier finding. Reports submitted without a burn are ineligible for rewards.
An audit contest drew 809 reports
The change follows a $1 million audit competition held between April 9 and May 9. It attracted 809 reports from 162 researchers, yet those produced only 127 unique security findings. Nearly half of valid submissions were duplicates, and Jump believes AI agents helped discover or write nearly every submission.
Review also slowed. The backlog peaked at 299 open reports, and other researchers rediscovered bugs that were already submitted but not yet fixed or disclosed. About 80% of duplicates arrived more than three days after the original report.
Jump's Ishan Bhatt wrote in an Oct. 16 review: "AI has made finding bugs cheap, but judging them is still expensive," according to CoinDesk.
Higher rewards for Alpenglow flaws
Jump is increasing payouts alongside the fee. Eligible findings receive twice the standard payout through Nov. 20, or three times for bugs specific to Alpenglow, Solana's new voting system. Critical Alpenglow findings can qualify for up to $300,000.
The contest itself uncovered serious vulnerabilities, including a scheduling error that could make Firedancer execute transactions in the wrong order and disagree with other Solana validators about the resulting network state.
Source: CoinDesk
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