Why does Ethereum spend $2 million on audit competitions instead of hiring traditional audit firms? Fredrik Svantes, Lead Protocol Security Researcher, breaks down the impossible math that makes crowdsourced security the only viable option for complex protocol upgrades.
Traditional audits work for smaller codebases, but Ethereum’s hard forks span 10+ client implementations written in completely different programming languages. The complexity makes comprehensive review “maybe even impossible” in standard two-week audit windows.
KEY POINTS COVERED:
Why protocol complexity breaks traditional audit models
The language diversity challenge: Go, Rust, Java, .NET, NIM, TypeScript clients
Crowdsourcing specialized expertise across hundreds of researchers
“More bang for the buck” through distributed skill sets
How one week understanding leaves only one week for actual auditing
The “wider set of eyes” approach to critical infrastructure security
GUEST BACKGROUND: Fredrik Svantes is Lead Protocol Security Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, managing security for hundreds of billions in on-chain value. He oversees protocol security, audit competitions, bug bounty programs, and the trillion dollar security initiative.
This insight comes from a comprehensive discussion about Ethereum’s security operations, including behind-the-scenes hard fork procedures, AI spam in bug bounties, and contrarian approaches to Web3 security architecture.
Listen to the complete episode to understand how Ethereum secures critical infrastructure upgrades and why traditional security models don’t scale to protocol-level complexity.