Beginner's Guide to Smart Contract Auditing and Bug Bounties

Web3 security offers lucrative opportunities for newcomers, as demonstrated by rapid progress in audit contests like Code Arena.

### Getting Started in Web3 Security: A Beginner's Guide to Smart Contract Auditing
* 👋 Welcome to the beginner roadmap for smart contract auditing, where I share my **learning resources and experiences** in the web3 bug bounty space.
* 📈 Despite being new to web3 security, I've made significant progress by participating in contests on Code Arena, earning a recent payout of **$3,000 for a high-severity finding**.
* 💰 The bug bounty platform, Code Arena, operates differently from traditional platforms, offering **audit contests with guaranteed payouts and less competition**, making it **ideal for newcomers**.
* 💻 I recommend starting with CTF challenges like **Ethernaut** and **Damn Vulnerable DeFi** to grasp Solidity, alongside tutorials such as Patrick Collins' on freeCodeCamp, to build **foundational knowledge**.
* 📚 Understanding DeFi basics is crucial, and resources like teachyourselfcrypto.com cover **essential topics** that can help you **interpret Solidity code better**.
* 🔍 After gaining some experience, it's vital to **read past audit reports** to understand various vulnerabilities and improve your auditing skills, focusing on both **unique and duplicate findings**.
* 🌟 With a growing number of contests and increasing payouts, my goal is to **continue climbing the leaderboard** while sharing insights and motivating others to **explore opportunities in web3 security**.
* 🚀 "It's possible to make **quick progress in this field**," as demonstrated by others like Dr. V, who **rapidly ascended the leaderboard** after starting with **zero knowledge** in smart contracts.

Beginner Roadmap to Smart Contract Auditing

Andy Li

Starting a Career in Web3 Security: A Beginner's Roadmap

The speaker shares their journey into web3 security, highlighting progress made through Code Arena contests.

They emphasize the abundance of opportunities in the space, with record-breaking bug bounties being offered.

The unique audit contest model of Code Arena is also explained, where participants can share the prize pool based on their submitted findings.

The Benefits of Code Arena for Bug Bounty Hunting

Code Arena offers less competition and lucrative payouts, with only 200 participants ever receiving a prize.

The platform's unique model of fresh code bases and duplicate finding guarantees participants a payout, making it ideal for newcomers.

With increasing contests and significant prize money, Code Arena provides a valuable learning resource through public reports and detailed walkthroughs of challenges.

Getting Started with Solidity and DeFi Challenges

The Damn Vulnerable DeFi challenge is the hardest among the recommended challenges for understanding Solidity vulnerabilities.

A Solidity tutorial by Patrick Collins on freeCodeCamp, available on YouTube, offers over 30 hours of material, including Python and JavaScript framework versions.

com provides a blog post covering five key DeFi concepts, while the Smart Contract Programmer's YouTube video explains the math behind the MasterChef contract and staking rewards.

Understanding audit findings through contests and previous reports is crucial for identifying vulnerabilities.

Securium's blog posts and audit findings 101 and 102 are valuable resources for learning.

Reviewing low-risk and duplicate findings from multiple wardens' perspectives helps clarify complex issues, while striving to identify unique high and medium severity findings is the ultimate goal.

The author has been reading previous audit reports to identify patterns and common issues in Solidity code, leading to the discovery of medium and high-severity findings.

After two months, they achieved a $3k payout for a high-severity issue, surprising themselves with their progress.

The author plans to read all of Code Arena's past audit reports, categorize findings, and spend more time on audit contests to maximize their earnings and climb the leaderboard.

Progress and Opportunities in Web3 Security

The speaker plans to share their Code Arena journey on YouTube to help others enter the Web3 security space.

V's rapid progress from zero knowledge to 10th on the leaderboard in just a few months, demonstrating the potential for quick success in the field.

The speaker encourages others to join, offering to answer questions and provide learning resources.