Jump Crypto, the trading firm behind Solana validator client Firedancer, has changed its bug bounty terms: every report now requires burning 1 SOL (about $100). The fee is nonrefundable even for invalid, out-of-scope or duplicate submissions, and reports without a burn are not eligible for rewards.

A $1M audit competition from April 9 to May 9 drew 809 reports from 162 researchers, but only 127 unique security findings.

Nearly half of valid submissions were duplicates, the review backlog peaked at 299 open reports, and Jump believes AI agents helped find or write nearly every submission. The new platform also caps each main report section at 3,000 characters.

Rewards are rising alongside the fee: eligible findings pay double through Nov. 20, or triple for bugs in Alpenglow, Solana's new voting system, with critical Alpenglow flaws eligible for up to $300,000.