Introducing Cantina: Web3 security marketplace
Cantina launches a security services marketplace connecting top researchers with blockchain projects needing audits.
Overview
Security priorities grow as industries mature. The blockchain space faces persistent smart contract vulnerabilities, resulting in significant fund losses. The central challenge: “How to most effectively connect projects with tier 1 security researchers and firms?”
Current market offerings fall short at scale, as evidenced by extensive documented hacks.
Cantina addresses this gap as a security services marketplace connecting top researchers and solutions with clients, fundamentally reshaping how security reviews function.
The State of Cryptocurrency
Security Market Needs:
- Top security researchers seek flexibility and fair compensation
- Development teams want quality services at reasonable costs
Current Issues:
- Large firms retain ~80% of contract pay, offer limited schedule flexibility
- This drives top talent toward independent work or small groups
- Independent researchers must handle legal, business development, and administrative tasks themselves, which is inefficient
Cantina’s Solution:
- Marketplace connecting qualified independent researchers and guilds to service demand
- Resources managing legal and administrative engagement aspects
- Clients pay less for higher quality with more choices; researchers earn 80% of pay instead of 20% and choose contracts independently
Those Seeking Security Services
Common objectives include:
- Finding best researchers matching specific needs
- Selecting reputable, trustworthy firms
- Maintaining budget constraints
Security Service Provider Categories
- Large firms
- Competitive/bounty programs
- Boutique firms
- Independent researchers
The Large Firm Route
Well-known crypto security firms offer optics and decent quality but suffer from cost and specialization limitations. While prominent names appear favorable from marketing perspectives, preventing exploits remains paramount.
Senior security experts avoid large firms’ unfavorable pay structures, where researchers receive under 10% of contract value, combined with inflexible hours. Large firms don’t scale effectively, and end consumers pay premiums for brand names rather than quality reviews. Top talent inevitably departs when proper incentives disappear.
The Bounty & Competition Route
Platforms like Code4rena, Sherlock, and Immunify host audit competitions attracting researchers at all levels. Problems include:
- Duplicate findings since independent researchers work in parallel
- Inefficiency: clients won’t pay multiple times for same findings
- Competitive reviews don’t retain top talent or provide coordinated team depth
The Boutique Firm Route
Small audit shops maintain excellent in-house teams and perform quality reviews. However, natural supply constraints command high prices, with clients facing long queues. These firms lack business development resources for higher-touch client needs.
The Independent Researcher Route
Tier-1 talent gravitates toward self-employment. This segment presents challenges:
- Building independent researcher reputation proves difficult
- Supply constraints exceed even boutique firms
- Lack legal resources for challenging situations
- Trust issues on both sides hinder major deal access
Filling The Security Market Gaps
Incubated by Spearbit, one of the industry’s most successful security guilds, Cantina addresses these issues. Spearbit coordinates 100+ vetted independent security researchers serving major brands including OpenSea, Polygon’s zkEVM, and Optimism.
The blockchain sector’s maturation will demand stronger protocol security guarantees. Creating a security marketplace enables top talent connecting with broader client universes, earning appropriately, and maintaining flexible schedules while platform handles legal and administrative processes.
Built For Clients and Researchers
For Researchers
Advantages include:
- Build and display public track records without independent client sourcing
- Significantly more favorable pay distribution versus large firms
- Schedule autonomy: choose projects discretionally
- Legal and administrative support from experienced teams
- Client vetting and dispute resolution resources
Cantina aims to make code review as accessible as Airbnb hosting, allowing researchers to focus solely on vulnerability detection and prevention.
For Clients
Cantina delivers cost-effective solutions where teams handpick from curated tier-1 security experts, receive multiple bids, and pay less than large audit firms. Access to specialized talent for specific codebases, unified platform consolidation, and accelerated engagement timelines enable faster shipping.
What’s Next?
Cantina launches with a public goods security review demonstrating platform capabilities while contributing to widely-used codebase security. The multi-week Solady Solidity Library review represents the first public goods security review in crypto, funded through sponsorship and crowdfunding.
Platform feature details will release soon, followed by researcher, guild, and client onboarding. Updates arriving via Twitter and Paragraph.
About Cantina: The first marketplace for web3 security aggregating security talent and solutions. Find expert researchers matching your needs at sustainable pricing.