Sherlock Audit Contests Program

Details

Sherlock is an audit marketplace and smart contract coverage protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. Sherlock works to protect Decentralized Finance (DeFi) users from smart contract exploits with security reviews from top auditors backed by smart contract coverage on the audited contracts.

You can find a brief overview of the Sherlock ecosystem below.

Sherlock Ecosystem

There are 3 main participants in the Sherlock ecosystem:

1. Protocols
2. Stakers
3. Watsons

Protocols

Protocols come to Sherlock for audits from top independent security experts. Sherlock offers smart contract coverage on any contracts that are reviewed as part of the audit. Sherlock offers coverage on white-hat bounties and/or black-hat exploits. The coverage is optional, but adding the coverage allows protocols to know that Sherlock has "skin in the game" in terms of auditing the smart contracts. Basically, if the audited smart contracts have a critical bug, Sherlock will likely have to pay out millions of dollars. No other auditor offers this kind of backing for their audits.

In return, whenever an exploit occurs at the protocol (on an audited contract), Sherlock will repay the amount of the exploit up to the coverage limit. Sherlock's claims process will decide whether or not an exploit falls under coverage and should be paid out.

Stakers

Stakers deposit USDC into the staking pools in return for one of the highest USDC APYs (as of 6/18/22) in DeFi. The APY stakers will receive is made up of 3 streams:

• Premiums from protocol customers

• Interest earned from depositing staker funds into yield strategies (Aave, Compound etc.)

• Incentive rewards paid in SHER (Sherlock’s governance token)

In return for these streams, a staker’s funds are at risk of being partially paid out (up to 50%) if a significant covered event (i.e. exploit) occurs on one of the audited contracts covered by Sherlock. Despite the risk, stakers are incentivized to stake because:

• There is a healthy APY to be earned for doing so

• Sherlock's auditors are some of the top security experts in the space

• Each covered protocol is required to have a large bug bounty program which can further protect stakers against losses

Watsons

Sherlock’s Watsons (the security experts) do a full audit of each prospective protocol's contracts and provide input as to the risk of the protocol's contracts. Sherlock audits feature both dedicated, top-tier auditors who are incentivized to find vulnerabilities in the codebase, as well as a contest pot where anyone in the world can find bugs. See the "Protocols" tab of the "Audits" section for more info on the audit process. And security experts (or those planning to become security experts) can see more information about how they can participate in audits in the "Watsons" tab in the "Audits" section.

Links

• Twitter
• Discord
• Github