4nescient (@4nescient) profile picture

Web3 Security Researcher

Joined November 2023
Photo by 4nescient (@4nescient)Photo by 4nescient (@4nescient)Photo by 4nescient (@4nescient)
Thrilled to see the results from my very first contest ✅ I submitted just one finding… it got validated… and ended up being the only valid bug in the entire contest🤯 Guess that means 100% coverage on my first attempt 😅 Beginner’s luck? Sure, but I’ll take it 😏 Big thanks to @sherlockdefi for the fun experience. On to the next hunt 🕵️‍♂️
🏆 @neutrl Audit Contest Results 🏆 Congrats to: $118,000 rewards ➡️ $16.4M+ paid out in rewards.
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4nescient retweeted
Some recent contest rewards from @HackenProof. Not much, but it's honest work. Smooth collab with @4Nescient as always. We're officially ranked 62nd on the All-Time Leaderboard 🏆 Keep grinding, guys, and whatever happens, happens. Not like we have a choice anyway... P.S. Hope I can share bigger results with you soon, but unfortunately these things take time.
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Firelight audit competition results are out. Some interesting stats from the leaderboard: 1. 189 valid reports, but only 8 unique bugs 2. Assuming invalids are only half of all submissions: ~378 × $25 = ~$9,450 in submission fees, against a $20k prize pool
The @Firelightfi Audit Competition is a wrap! 🏆 Top Winners: 🥇 @aussinfosec - $7,960 🥈 @Tradi3_ - $3,591 🥉 @buganbug - $1,783 Congrats to all participants & winners! 🎖
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3. Even assuming all SRs on the leaderboard have zero invalid submissions and no $250 mediations, 112 of the 133 whitehats are net negative.
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@immunefi 's plan to publish confirmed bugs mid-contest helps, but it's a partial fix, there's still a lag between submission, triage and announcement. And without duplicates, is it still a contest, or just a bug bounty with a time limit?
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2nd out of 1,480, with 3 valid medium findings. Really proud of what we pulled off and even more proud of the quality and consistency behind it. Hats off to @0xgo4ko for his exceptional performance in escalations as always, and pushing for the right calls. 🤝 Invalidatoors are just getting started.
Yo, me and my bro @4nescient ranked 2nd 🥈 in the @metricxyz contest on @sherlockdefi as team Invalidatoors 🤝 Escalations were fierce and the competition was stacked with top SRs, especially with a codebase this complex. You need to know your stuff perfectly so you can defend your findings even in your sleep - otherwise, the other contestoors will crush you. Huge thanks to @Taridoku for judging 3k+ reports. Insane work from an amazing SR. P.S. Next time, we’re taking the top spot 👊
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Regardless of how the market is performing, there are always self-motivated individuals who find ways to contribute. @0xgo4ko is one of them, and it's a pleasure to work with him. Greater things to come. 🫡
Long time since I last posted results on here (quite busy with exams and other work), but there was always time for contests, I guess 😅 So, firstly, three contests with my bro @4nescient as team Invalidatoors (our team is Top 100 All Time on HackenProof btw). Thanks for the great experience and hard work, man 🫡 - 0xMarkets (HackenProof) - 6H, 7M, 3L, 7th place. Decent reward and reputation. Manual review + AI for bug hunting, triage, PoCs and polishing reports. Our only regret was joining too late. - TipRun (HackenProof) - 3C, 2H, again a very decent reward. Our first prediction market audit. Learned a lot, although once again we joined late. - XRP Ledger (Sherlock) - 1M, 1L. Large, complex codebase and our first C++ audit. This contest convinced me to start integrating AI much more into my workflow, especially for large repos. Solo: - Revert Finance StableSwap Hooks (Cantina) - 1H, 1M. Awesome learning opportunity: Uniswap v4, Hooks and Curve-style AMMs. - DreApp (Sherlock). Stablecoins (alongside LSTs and Lending) are still my favorite protocols to audit. Unfortunately, the contest had no valid H/Ms, but I still received leaderboard rewards. Huge thanks to @HackenProof, @sherlockdefi and @cantinasecurity. I know contests aren't what they used to be, so opportunities like these are always appreciated. 🤍💜🧡 Also, it's been great seeing so many talented SRs bagging some awesome bounties lately. Congrats to everyone putting in the work and securing this space. You are a huge motivation to me and many others 👏
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Another one done, thanks @CODESPECT for the opportunity.
Replying to @CODESPECT
3/ 🏆 The full leaderboard payouts Every researcher below earned their slice of the pot. Take a bow @heavyw8t_ → €3,901.76 @Huntoor → €1,939.94 @brandon_shi → €1,821.80 @xxiv_eth → €1,783.58 @4Nescient → €1,665.45
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4nescient retweeted
This Security Researcher has earned $3,612,409 hunting bugs on Immunefi. 32+ live critical vulnerabilities found, saving hundreds of millions of dollars from hacks. Meet @lonelysloth_sec, ranked Top 5 all-time on @Immunefi. We asked him how he does it. One practical bug bounty strategy that has helped him find better bugs: "Protocols share a lot of code. When you find a bug that isn't exploitable, take some times to check if the same bug doesn't show up in other protocols where it might be. Study families of protocols, compare their code. Things are getting more and more interconnected." The habit, routine, or mindset that has made him more consistent as a researcher: "Curiosity. I don't rest until I understand every part of the system. Even if I end up not finding a bug, I want to understand it." A memorable bug or win, and what helped him find it: "I have quite a few public disclosures, but for one project between '24 to '25 I got paid for 9 critical bugs. I spent months getting to know every last detail of their (very large) code base. More than a breakthrough it was about persistence in one target, learning everything about it, and using everything I knew on it. They weren't the highest paying bugs I found, but I'm very proud of that achievement. I still find bugs in that project." His advice to a researcher trying to level up or land their first bounty: "Find motivation in the journey, because it's a long one. Enjoy understanding something that previously was mysterious to you, the feeling of knowledge accumulating. It compounds and will eventually lead to your bounties. Keep trying -- you need to give luck a chance to find you."
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Took my time with @0xFireFist 's x-ray v2. Ran it on three different projects I'm auditing right now before posting anything. The auto-generated diagram is the standout. Saves real hours getting oriented in an unfamiliar codebase. And it's open source. Free. Zero excuses not to try it. Thanks for shipping this 🙏
🚨🤯Someone built an AI tool that one-shots the threat model & invariants of your Solidity codebase. Companies used to charge >$20k for this. It's called X-ray, free and fully open-source. My security team will be using this. Check it out below👇 github.com/pashov/skills/tre…
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One thing I kept noticing while learning ZKVMs is that there's a real gap between understanding SNARKs/STARKs at a theory level and understanding what a ZKVM is actually doing under the hood. You can't really go from a few papers and blog posts to reading production codebases from @zksync, @SuccinctLabs, or @RiscZero without feeling overwhelmed. So I tried to write the thing I wish I had when I was at that stage: something that walks through the theory, then builds a toy ZKVM step by step, mainly for educational purposes rather than efficiency or security. ubermensch.blog/articles/mak…
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⚔️ Solana Audit Arena — Week 2 Results MissionX has been dissected. 42 submissions. 11 researchers. 17 unique vulnerabilities. This week's top researchers: 🥇 @4nescient — 15 pts 🥈 @kyan_novoyd — 12 pts 🥉 @zuhaib44 — 6 pts 4️⃣ @0xSantii — 4 pts 5️⃣ @R4Y4N3___ — 6 pts (new entry) 🔥 Best finding: @4nescient — reserve1 underflow in buy() sells reserved payout tokens and bricks migration. 🚀 Rising researcher: @0xKarl98 — first week, strong methodology. Full breakdown in the thread 🧵👇 Repo: github.com/Frankcastleaudito…
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Why don’t Anthropic just use Claude Code 🤷🏻‍♂️
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Appreciate it 🙏 that one was satisfying to find.
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A useful reminder: no major findings is also information. Wrapped up @flyingtulip_ and @OpenCover on @sherlockdefi . No big findings here, just two clean and solid codebases. Sometimes the takeaway is simply that the team did a solid job. On to the next.
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Two months ago I joined the Cyfrin Updraft program to learn smart-contract auditing. Today I landed 3rd place in my first #FirstFlight contest on @codehawks_! 🚀 Huge thanks to @PatrickAlphaC and the Cyfrin fam for all the guidance. I’m off to hunt more bugs, grab that first unique high.😅 The best is yet to come. Learn more on: 🔗 codehawks.cyfrin.io/c/2025-0… #SmartContractSecurity #Web3Security #Ethereum #Auditing
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When I first learned Solana, I was searching for a resource that explained how Solana programs work under the hood, beyond just Rust. I couldn’t find one I liked, so I wrote my own. Get nerdy: ubermensch.blog/under-the-ho…
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