As hacks and exploits continue to proliferate within the crypto industry, the importance of finding vulnerabilities to avoid potential losses becomes paramount. However, a Web3 developer noted that it is not rewarding to do so.

In a tweet, a Web3 developer reclaimed which found a vulnerability in a Solana smart contract that would have affected several projects and around $30 million in funding. According to the developer, he reported and helped patch the vulnerabilities. However, when it came time to ask for a reward, the projects simply started ignoring it.

The developer noted that this sends the wrong message because it shows that projects would rather be hacked than report critical bugs to them. The wrote:

“This is why situations like the Mango exploit happen, where the exploiter will first steal the funds and then start trading. There is no proper incentive to report.”

Community members also echoed the developer’s sentiment. Smit Khakhkhar, a fellow developer, answered by stating that he also made the same mistake multiple times. “This is one of the main reasons hackers exploit first and trade later,” he wrote. On the other hand, a Twitter user thinks that it is also possible that the developers inside the projects want to secretly exploit the code themselves. They tweeted:

Yes, the incentives to hack it yourself are much higher than the incentive to report. Also… maybe these developers wanted to secretly exploit it themselves. Don’t discount it. I’m sure the people most likely to spot exploits are code writers.

—ReddSpark (@Redd_Spark) December 20, 2022

Because of this, some predict that the next cycle in cryptography will be a break and repair cycle. According to the community member, merchants could potentially pay blackhats to exploit critical vulnerabilities while short-cutting projects.

Related: Trader allegedly saw profit of over 5,000x after Ankr protocol hack

Meanwhile, many industry executives believe that artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT can help secure smart contracts. Speaking with Cointelegraph, HashEx CEO Dmitry Mishunin recently noted that ChatGPT can be integrated and reduce the number of hacks within the industry.

Within cryptocurrencies, many hacks have been highlighted in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Despite this, many industry professionals are confident that broader DeFi adoption can be achieved by educating institutional players and removing user experience barriers.