The Ethereum Foundation has announced a four-week security audit contest for its upcoming Fusaka network upgrade, offering up to $2 million in rewards for bug reports. The contest, hosted on the Sherlock platform and co-sponsored by Gnosis and Lido, runs from September 15 to October 13, 2025.
With multipliers of 2x in week one and 1.5x in week two, the program is designed to attract early participation and identify vulnerabilities before Fusaka’s expected mainnet launch in late 2025.
Fusaka Upgrade: Key Features
Fusaka bundles multiple Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to boost security, scalability, and efficiency.
- Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS): Distributes blob data checks across nodes, enabling them to confirm data availability without downloading full datasets. This improves validator efficiency and supports higher rollup capacity, reducing transaction costs and increasing throughput.
- EVM Object Format (EOF): Refines the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) for more efficient and secure smart contract execution.
These features aim to strengthen Ethereum’s ability to host DeFi protocols and decentralized applications (dApps) at scale.
Why the Audit Contest Matters
Security remains central to Ethereum’s long-term success. By crowdsourcing efforts from auditors and white-hat hackers, the Foundation hopes to:
- Identify critical vulnerabilities before mainnet deployment.
- Prevent disruptions that could undermine Fusaka’s rollout.
- Build a transparent feedback loop via an official post-mortem report guiding future upgrades.
This contest complements Ethereum’s ongoing Bug Bounty program, which offers up to $250,000 for protocol-wide vulnerabilities. However, the Fusaka audit is narrowly focused on risks tied to this specific upgrade.
Challenges and Timeline
While Fusaka is tentatively slated for Q4 2025, Foundation executives have warned of potential delays if team coordination falters.
- Tomasz Stańczak, co-executive director, suggested some features—like EOF—could be deferred if schedules tighten.
- Developers emphasize that precision matters more than speed, given the scale of Fusaka’s impact on Ethereum’s infrastructure.
Despite uncertainties, Fusaka is one of the most anticipated Ethereum upgrades, promising significant advances in scalability, cost efficiency, and validator performance. If successful, it will reinforce Ethereum’s leadership in the blockchain ecosystem.
