White hat Web3 earns millions of dollars, far exceeding the $300,000 salary of traditional cybersecurity jobs.
White hat hackers in Web3 are becoming millionaires by discovering vulnerabilities in DeFi, far exceeding the salary of $150,000–300,000 of traditional cybersecurity experts. According to Mitchell Amador, CEO of Immunefi, some researchers earn between $1–14 million per year, with Immunefi having paid out over $120 million and created 30 millionaires.
The biggest success was the reward of 10 million USD for a hacker who discovered a critical flaw in the Wormhole bridge, helping to avoid damage of billions of USD. However, Wormhole was still exploited for 321 million USD in 2022. Amador stated that cross-chain bridges are the “juiciest” targets due to their complexity and the massive amount of assets.
In August, cryptocurrency hacks and scams caused losses of 163 million USD, a 15% increase compared to July, notably including a scam of 91 million USD and the Btcturk exchange incident losing 50 million USD.
