panther.audits — smart contract security auditor
I find protocol-breaking bugs before mainnet. Deep expertise across Move, Rust/Solana, EVM, Cairo, and TON — plus active research in ZK and AI security. Aave, DeepBook, Decibel, Tensor, PancakeSwap, Venus — 50+ protocols reviewed across audits, contests, and bounty triage, securing $10B+ in combined TVL.
Firms & platforms
// 20 engagements with Pashov Audit Group · 8 with Adevar Labs · repeat reviewer for multiple firms
// contracted by
// ranked on
Testimonials
// feedback from lead auditors and protocol teams
Best fit for
// where I add the most value for protocols and audit firms
Direct protocol audits
Solo engagements scoped, executed, and reported by me end-to-end: threat model → review → report → fix-review. No firm overhead — direct access to the researcher reading your code.
Sui & Aptos Move depth
Object ownership, PTB composition, shared objects, abilities, resource accounts, and upgrade paths — the Move-specific bug classes that brick protocols, and that EVM-trained auditors walk past.
Complex DeFi reviews
Lending, credit systems, perps, CLOBs, DEXes, vaults, staking, RWA, and cross-chain systems where accounting and liquidation paths need deep review.
Audit firm reviewer capacity
Private engagements under NDA, second-review support, contest-style depth, report-ready findings, and fast ramp-up on unfamiliar codebases.
Bounty triage & validation
Severity validation, deterministic PoC reproduction, and reviewer-ready handoff for live bounty programs — Move (Sui/Aptos core), Solana Token-2022/NFT marketplaces, EVM/Solidity DeFi, and OP Stack/Go scopes.
Formal verification support
Invariant design, Certora CVL, Sui Prover, Move Prover, and property-driven review for protocol-critical accounting and access-control logic.
ZK and AI security review
Emerging focus — independently rediscovered a critical ZKsync Lite circuit issue. Constraint soundness, proof-system assumptions, AI model attack surfaces, output integrity, and ML supply-chain risk.
How I work
// structured enough for firm workflows, deep enough for protocol-critical code
Build the threat model first
Map trust boundaries, assets at risk, privileged roles, user flows, external dependencies, upgrade paths, and protocol-specific failure modes before hunting isolated bugs.
Prove the core invariants
Stress the accounting, solvency, access-control, oracle, liquidation, settlement, and state-machine invariants that must hold for the protocol to stay safe.
Attack real execution paths
Trace adversarial flows across deposits, withdrawals, liquidations, upgrades, callbacks, cross-chain messages, keeper actions, and partial-failure scenarios.
Deliver findings teams can act on
Each report is written with clear impact, root cause, exploit path, affected code, mitigation guidance, and PoC or test direction where the engagement allows it.
Languages & ecosystems
// multi-chain coverage across the highest-value platforms
defi_protocols
nft_infra
staking_restaking
xchain_infra
Top 3 finishes
// 6× top-3 placements in competitive audit contests · verify on my cantina profile ↗
Proof points
// short examples of the bug classes and review depth I bring to audits
Wrong-address state reads would have bricked Aave's first non-EVM deployment
Configuration was stored at one address while getters read from another. The issue was confirmed as High severity and took 3rd place on the Cantina leaderboard.
Forgotten ownership state could resurrect a previous owner
A subtle access-control cleanup issue reported privately to OpenZeppelin — fixed in v0.16.0 and published as CVE-2024-45304.
Return-after-mutation pattern permanently corrupted order book state
A Move-specific control-flow bug where an error path used return after deleting state, committing the mutation instead of reverting.
Open-sourced my Move audit tooling and full AI-assisted workflow
move-auditor — an open-source security-audit skill for Move codebases — plus the prompts and pipeline I use in real engagements, published for the community.
Critical & High severity
// selected protocol-breaking findings across ecosystems
// independent vulnerability disclosures across L1/L2 protocols
// *both criticals were independent rediscoveries of issues the teams were already tracking — found blind, without internal context
From the blog
// deep dives into real vulnerabilities, audit war stories, and research
Private Bug Bounty Triage — Validating and Reproducing Web3 Findings
Inside my firm-side triage workflow: validating live bounty submissions, writing deterministic PoCs after triage, and packaging clean impact evidence — without leaking client details.
read full post →How to Audit a Perp Protocol on Sui Move
A practical checklist for Sui perps: object model risks, hot-potato request flows, PTB composition, shared collateral vaults, liquidations, and oracle/funding-rate attack surfaces.
read post →The Move Bug That Would Have Bricked Aave on Aptos
A $24k contest finding from the Aave Aptos V3 audit on Cantina. Data stored at one address, every getter reading from another — dead on arrival.
read post →Engagement FAQ
// the practical answers before you reach out
How is pricing determined?
Per scope and complexity. Send the repo (or docs) with an estimated LoC and you'll get a quote within 24h. Scoping is always free.
How long does an audit take?
Focused reviews: under a week. Comprehensive audits: 1–3 weeks depending on size and complexity. The exact timeline comes with the quote.
What do I actually get?
A report with severity-classified findings — impact, root cause, exploit path, affected code, and PoCs where applicable — plus mitigation guidance and a fix-review pass on your remediations.
Do you work under NDA?
Yes — most of my portfolio is firm-side NDA work. I'll sign yours, or provide a standard mutual NDA.
How do I verify the private work?
References from the engaging firms — Pashov Audit Group, Adevar Labs, Three Sigma, Sherlock, Cyfrin, Zenith — and redacted findings summaries are available on request.
Direct audit or through a firm?
Both work. Hire me directly for a solo engagement, or through any of the firms I review for — whichever fits your procurement and budget.
Ready to secure your protocol?
Booking Q3 2026 audit slots — also available for security consulting, formal verification, firm-side reviewer capacity, and bounty triage support. Move / Rust / Solidity / Cairo / Vyper / TON / ZK / AI security. Reach out on X or Telegram — I reply within 24h. Scoping is free.
- protocol name, ecosystem, and audit scope
- repo/docs access, estimated LoC, and target dates
- whether you need a solo review, firm-side reviewer capacity, formal verification, or bounty triage support
// official channels: x.com/thepantherplus (also known as @theblackpantherhere) · t.me/theblackpantherhere — any other handle is an impersonator