Bounty Meaning
What is a Crypto Bounty?
A cryptocurrency bounty refers to an incentive program that rewards users for performing specific tasks assigned by a blockchain project.
Crypto bounties help create engagement and increase awareness about a blockchain project to improve its chances of success. It also aimed at improving the blockchain’s security against malicious actors by identifying bugs and vulnerabilities within the project’s software before they can be exploited.
How Do Cryptocurrency Bounties Work?
Developers prioritize releasing efficient and secure applications or software to the end users. However, even the crème de la crème of developers might miss a bug or two, which might pose some security risks in future. And for systems like blockchain that are designed to securely store and transmit sensitive data, even the slightest bug or error can have significant negative impacts on the project’s success. Therefore, cryptocurrency projects – such as exchanges, wallet providers, and protocols – offer developers bug bounties as a supplementary security measure to protect users from malicious actors.
The projects offer this reward with the hope that one of the users will identify potential vulnerabilities or bugs that may affect the overall functionality of the project. Bounty schemes are open to the public, allowing anyone to compete. The scheme can be thought of as a group of “bounty hackers” competing to find a bug for a reward. The individual who finds the bug first reports it to the cryptocurrency project offering the bounty. This allows the technical team to fix the identified vulnerability before a malicious actor can exploit it.
While individual bounties may be very low, the incentive amount often relies on the vulnerability’s severity. For instance, a low-severity bug may attract a $120 reward. On the contrary, a high-severity bug may attract over $10,000.
What is a Crypto Bounty Hunter?
The popularity of these programs has given rise to a new breed of participants in the crypto arena – the “crypto bounty hunter”. A crypto bounty hunter is an individual interested in pursuing various reward programs or profits while promoting a crypto project. They can participate in several reward programs and earn rewards simultaneously, such as identifying bugs and promoting a project.
For example, a bounty hunter could hunt bugs within a crypto project and report to the development team in exchange for a reward. In most cases, the “hunters” are rewarded using the project’s native currency.
To better understand how bounty programs work, check out Ledger’s Bounty Program.