LayerZero Labs, the workforce behind cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero, has partnered with bug bounty and safety companies platform Immunefi to launch a $15 million bug bounty for its protocol, based on the co-founder of LayerZero. proprietor and CEO Brian Pellegrino informed currencyjournals EXCLUSIVELY.

The Bug Bounty Alliance provides as much as $15 million in bounties for every new vulnerability found by a moral hacker. The platform has introduced bug bounties prior to now, however they weren’t all that costly, Pellegrino stated.

The $15 million max prize additionally makes it the most important bug bounty program within the cryptocurrency ecosystem, surpassing MakerDAO’s $10 million program.

“We come up with the money for to pay out a big bounty. The security of the protocol comes first,” Pellegrino stated. The bounty will come from LayerZero Labs’ capital firm, Pellegrino added.

Immunefi says it gives safety companies for greater than $60 billion in consumer funds throughout crypto-based tasks and corporations equivalent to Polygon, Synthetix, Chainlink, SushiSwap, MakerDAO and Optimism. He has paid out over $75 million in bug bounties up to now.

Final month, LayerZero raised $120 million in a Collection B spherical at a $3 billion valuation. Not like Internet 2.0 messaging platforms equivalent to WhatsApp and Telegram, its messaging protocol permits customers to ship various kinds of messages throughout blockchains, together with cross-chain interactions, thus eradicating the necessity for intermediaries. LayerZero connects over 30 mainnet blockchains, together with two non-Ethereum digital machines (EVMs) and Aptos.

In keeping with De.Fi’s REKT database, the cryptocurrency ecosystem misplaced about $9.33 trillion to exploits, hacks and fraud final yr and recovered slightly below $1 trillion.

Greater than $3.9 billion was “misplaced” final yr, based on Immunefi’s Crypto Losses 2022 report. That may look like lots of capital to lose observe of, however it’s 51.2% lower than in 2021, when greater than $8 billion was stolen, the report discovered.

Many of the 2022 losses, or $3.77 billion, had been as a result of hacks throughout 134 particular incidents. His 34 fraud instances throughout the identical interval value him roughly $175 million.

Based in March 2022, LayerZero has recorded greater than $15 billion in buying and selling quantity prior to now 14 months, based on Pellegrino. He added that since its inception, the messaging his protocol has “by no means had any safety exploits or hacks.”

LayerZero spent about $5 million final yr on safety audits and goals to observe a course of to safe code earlier than launch, Pellegrino stated.

Though the market is shedding much less, the losses are nonetheless enormous. In March, hackers stole about $200 million from crypto lending platform Euler Finance. This seems like some huge cash, however it actually is. that is all In keeping with De.Fi information, that is the twenty sixth largest cryptocurrency theft of all time.

“Safety ought to be at first for anybody constructing on this house,” stated Pellegrino. “If you happen to don’t have good safety, you’ll find yourself being hacked.”