Sherlock

Financial coverage that reimburses protocols for losses from smart-contract exploits that should have been caught during a Sherlock audit. Historically offered up to $10M per protocol under the V2 staking model; the current Sherlock Shield product sits on top of audited code post-launch with limits up to $500,000 and is explicitly described as 'not insurance', with payouts governed by written program terms and claims processes.

A single Ethereum-based underwriting pool where stakers locked USDC to backstop coverage payouts. Stakers earned cover-purchase fees, yield-strategy returns and SHER token incentives, but bore first-loss risk: staked capital could be liquidated to pay valid exploit claims.

Large-scale adversarial competitions where thousands of registered security researchers compete to find vulnerabilities in a protocol's codebase for a prize pool, with severity-based scoring.

Private, staffed security reviews led by top-ranked researchers, offered as a pre-launch complement or alternative to open contests.

Ongoing post-launch incentive programs for live protocols, including record-size bounties (e.g. a $16M program for Usual).

AI-driven automated code-analysis tool (beta launched September 2025) that scans smart-contract code during development to surface vulnerabilities earlier in the lifecycle.

Two-stage claims process: the Sherlock Protocol Claims Committee (core team + security advisors) votes within ~7 days; denied claims can be escalated to UMA's Optimistic Oracle for arbitration for a fixed fee.

Native protocol token used for staking rewards and researcher incentives. Note: SHER was never launched as a liquid, publicly traded token; the planned large public token round did not result in a live token.