Can’t Afford a Smart Contract Audit? 7 Options | Zealynx
Compare seven realistic security options when a full smart contract audit is out of budget, from free tools and AI review to senior audit sessions.
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Public write-ups on the bugs, patterns, and protocols we audit. Engineer-to-engineer, no fluff.
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A Uniswap V3 Position Is a Hash and Five Numbers
There is no LP token in the V3 core. Fees are a debt, not a compounding balance. And the order of two lines decides whether anyone earns anything at all.
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AI Agent Wallet Security: 5 Ways Someone Empties It (and the Fix for Each)
An AI agent gave away 3 billion tokens because someone asked it to translate Morse code. The five ways an agent's wallet gets emptied, each shown on a local chain with a simulated agent, and the fix for each in code.
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WebSocket Authentication Is a Retention Boundary
A comparative study of WebSocket credential carriers, URL logging, browser constraints, and safer handshake authentication designs.
ReadCategory / research-articles
See all in Research Articles Research Articles.
WebSocket Authentication Is a Retention Boundary
A comparative study of WebSocket credential carriers, URL logging, browser constraints, and safer handshake authentication designs.
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When Operator Approval Stops Meaning Consent
A comparative study of NFT operator authority, approval scope, caller identity, revocation, and the controls that preserve holder consent.
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ERC-20 Transfers Need Three Proofs, Not One
A comparative study of ERC-20 transfer failures across custody, call success, and protocol accounting, anchored in the Bastion review.
ReadCategory / smart-contracts
See all in Smart Contract Security Smart Contract Security.
GENIUS Act Stablecoin Security: 5 Things Your Contract Must Get Right
The GENIUS Act asks every US dollar stablecoin for 1:1 reserves and the ability to comply with lawful orders. Five ways a stablecoin contract fails those demands, each shown on a local chain, with the fix in Solidity.
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Hyperliquid Security Checklist for Builders: HyperBFT, HyperCore, HyperEVM Risks Before Mainnet
A builder focused Hyperliquid security checklist covering HyperBFT assumptions, HyperCore integrations, HyperEVM deployment risks, and pre audit launch gates before mainnet.
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Hyperliquid Security Checklist for Builders: HyperBFT, HyperCore, HyperEVM
A builder focused Hyperliquid security checklist covering HyperBFT, HyperCore, HyperEVM, order flow, liquidation, oracle, bridge, and pre audit risks before launch.
ReadCategory / protocol-deep-dives
See all in DeFi Protocol Analysis DeFi Protocol Analysis.
A Uniswap V3 Position Is a Hash and Five Numbers
There is no LP token in the V3 core. Fees are a debt, not a compounding balance. And the order of two lines decides whether anyone earns anything at all.
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Floor Is Not Truncation: The Uniswap V3 TickBitmap
1.7 million possible ticks and the swap loop cannot scan them. One storage read, a mask, a bit scan. And one division that behaves differently for negative ticks.
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Fee Growth Outside: The Uniswap V3 Trick Nobody Explains Well
How much did a position earn while in range, over months of crossings, with no loops and one checkpoint? V3 answers in two subtractions by storing the wrong side on purpose.
ReadCategory / audit-ops
See all in Audit Operations Audit Operations.
Our AI Pipeline Finds Criticals Hiding in Plain Sight
How Zealynx's semi-autonomous AI finds unique Critical and High bugs in crowded audit competitions — 2nd of 98 on Quantus, plus the honest losses.
ReadCan’t Afford a Smart Contract Audit? 7 Options | Zealynx
Compare seven realistic security options when a full smart contract audit is out of budget, from free tools and AI review to senior audit sessions.
Read
What Happens During a Smart Contract Audit: Week-by-Week Process
A senior auditor walks through what actually happens during a smart contract audit, week by week. Pre-audit prep, manual review, findings, fix verification, and final deliverables.
ReadCategory / adversarial-security
See all in Adversarial & AI Security Adversarial & AI Security.
AI Agent Wallet Security: 5 Ways Someone Empties It (and the Fix for Each)
An AI agent gave away 3 billion tokens because someone asked it to translate Morse code. The five ways an agent's wallet gets emptied, each shown on a local chain with a simulated agent, and the fix for each in code.
Read
x402 Security: 5 Ways a Paid API Gets Drained (and the Fix for Each)
One signed x402 payment, sent 20 times at once, bought 20 premium responses. The five ways a paid x402 endpoint gets drained, each shown on a local chain, with the fix in code.
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When LLMs Sign Transactions: AI-Driven Smart Contract Threat Model
When LLMs can prepare or sign transactions, smart contract risk expands into prompt injection, policy drift, simulation mismatch, and wallet authority abuse.
ReadCategory / web3-attack-vectors
See all in Web3 Attack Vectors Web3 Attack Vectors.
The Asset You Price Is Not Always the Asset You Release
Demex's bridge released approximately US$191,929 while its withdrawal guard recorded US$10.47. The failure shows why bridge limits must price the destination asset actually leaving custody.
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ERC-4626 inflation attack: how it works and how to stop it
The ERC-4626 inflation attack still drains vaults in 2026. See the deposit-donate math, real hacks (Cream, Sonne, Resupply), and the invariants that catch it.
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Signer compromise: why clean audits don't stop key hacks
Most 2026 DeFi losses came from compromised signers, not buggy code. How multisig, timelocks, and MPC contain key compromise — lessons from Drift's $285M hack.
ReadCategory / industry
See all in Industry and Compliance Industry and Compliance.
Web3 Security Communities in 2026: Where Developers, Auditors, and Founders Actually Level Up
Free Discords, CTFs, audit contest platforms, bootcamps, and paid memberships compared. What each one actually gives a web3 developer, aspiring auditor, or protocol founder in 2026, what it costs, and how to choose.
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The Web3 Founder's Survival Guide: Everything No Engineering Curriculum Teaches
Most Web3 founders are technical and ship great code, then watch the protocol die to non-code problems. Tokenomics, fundraising, governance, regulatory, GTM — this is what kills teams.
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OWASP Smart Contract Top 10 2026: changes and audit guide
The 2026 OWASP Smart Contract Top 10 elevated business logic to #2 and added proxy & upgradeability at #10. Here's what changed and how to audit.
ReadCategory / zealynx-news
See all in Zealynx News Zealynx News.
New to Web3? The Exact 90-Day Path We'd Give a Complete Beginner
How to learn Web3 from scratch: the right order to actually understand blockchains, wallets, DeFi, and scams, in a free 90-day path.
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Introducing Your First 90 Days in Web3: A Free, Guided Path to Actually Understand the Space
A free, interactive Zealynx Academy course that teaches you to understand Web3 for real, crypto, DeFi, wallets, DAOs, scams, security, not memorize jargon.
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Why a Smart Contract Audit Firm Built a Free Beginner Web3 Course
After 30+ audits, we kept seeing failures rooted in missing literacy, not missing code skill. So a security firm built a beginner course. Here's why.
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All research.
Inline Assembly Gas Tricks: Hashing, Loops & Storage Writes That Save 30%+ in Solidity
Learn how to use inline assembly (Yul) in Solidity to save gas on hashing, loops, math operations, storage writes, zero-address checks, and ETH balance reads — with side-by-side gas comparisons.
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Aave V3 Pool.sol Deep Dive: Supply, Borrow & Withdraw Logic Every Auditor Must Know
Deep dive into Aave V3 Pool.sol — supply, withdraw, borrow, and repay functions explained. Understand the core smart contract architecture auditors need to know.
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Phishing Attack in Web3: Why You Should Never Use tx.origin
Learn why using tx.origin for authorization in Solidity is vulnerable to phishing attacks, how attackers exploit it, and how msg.sender prevents it.
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Solidity Gas Optimization: Understanding How EVM Works Can Save You Gas
Learn how understanding the Ethereum Virtual Machine internals — cold vs warm access, zero vs non-zero storage, variable packing, and uint sizing — can significantly reduce gas costs in your Solidity smart contracts.
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Reentrancy Attacks in Solidity — Understand Them and Prevent Them
Learn what reentrancy attacks are in Solidity smart contracts, how attackers exploit them, and three prevention techniques including noReentrant modifiers, Checks-Effects-Interactions pattern, and GlobalReentrancyGuard.
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