Anza is charging security researchers a non-refundable 0.5 SOL fee to file each finding in its Alpenglow consensus upgrade bug bounty program, with submissions closing at 16:00 UTC on Aug. 19.
Alpenglow, proposed under SIMD-0326, is a backwards-incompatible replacement for Solana’s current Proof-of-History and TowerBFT consensus protocol. The bounty scope covers the Votor voting engine, vote and certificate messages, BLS signature and certificate verification, the TowerBFT migration path, and specified validator integration surfaces.
Researchers must demonstrate findings on a local fork, multi-node harness, or simulation. Mainnet and public-testnet attacks are unauthorized. Public or previously disclosed issues do not qualify. Known issues, test code, third-party cryptography dependencies, and ordinary TowerBFT-only paths are excluded from the bounty.
Award Structure and Severity Tiers
The program pools rewards across five severity categories. Loss-of-funds findings unlock the largest aggregate pool of 50,000 SOL, with individual awards ranging from 6,250 to 25,000 SOL. Consensus or safety violations award between 3,125 and 12,500 SOL. Liveness findings pay 1,250 to 5,000 SOL. Denial-of-service findings range from 315 to 1,250 SOL.
Priority depends on evidence, not timestamp alone; the earliest report meeting the proof-of-concept bar at its assessed severity receives the award. Anza stated that “Alpenglow was excluded from Agave’s standing bounty during development, monorepo migration and internal-audit phases.”
Consensus Mechanics and Technical Requirements
Alpenglow promises transaction finality of 100-150 milliseconds, compared to the current TowerBFT finality of 12.8 seconds. The upgrade requires 60% stake for notarization, skip, finalization, and notar-fallback certificates, and 80% stake for fast finalization. The security model assumes 40% crash-failure resilience in a 20+20 configuration.
Votor components use BLS-based vote and certificate aggregation and verification.
Submission and Payout Timeline
Eligibility ends when a fix reaches Agave master. Adjudication closes on Sept. 2. Payment follows the adjudication close and KYC completion. All awards are lump sums in SOL locked for 12 months.
