Guardian Audits launches $1M fund to cover crypto security audits

What's the deal? Guardian AuditsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the smart contract security firm founded by Owen Thurm in 2022, has launched a top-tier security program called Vanguard alongside a $1 million fund covering audit costs for qualifying crypto projects. Rather than cash grants, the fund pays for the security work itself.

Why now? Guardian is targeting high-risk windows — mainnet launches, token generation events, and protocol migrations — when projects are most exposed. Applications are open now, with the firm assessing candidates on timelines, deployment readiness, and risk profiles.

What's the endgame? Vanguard is built around a layered defence model. Each engagement deploys two independent auditor teams working in parallel, a structure designed to catch what a single team might miss.

The program also adds AI-assisted code analysis and fuzzing, which bombards contracts with random inputs to surface unexpected behaviour. A $100K defender contest sits on top: after the initial review, external researchers are paid to find flaws, creating a final checkpoint before code goes live.

The track record: Guardian says it has identified more than 300 critical vulnerabilities since 2022 and helped secure between $45 billion and $50 billion in digital assets across its clients. It maintains a public audit portfolio on GitHub.

The signal: Smart contract exploits remain among crypto's costliest failures, and single-firm audits have proven fallible. By stacking dual teams, automated testing, and a bounty layer — and footing the bill — Guardian is betting that redundancy, not a single stamp of approval, is what the market now wants.

Read more: cryptobriefing.com

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