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Bastion Whitepaper

A technical and product overview of Bastion: how researchers, projects, and ecosystems coordinate security work on one platform.

Last updated: June 8, 2026

1. Executive Summary

Bastion is a Web3 security coordination platform connecting security researchers, project teams, and blockchain ecosystems. It helps participants coordinate researcher reputation, project security profiles, vulnerability reports, bounty programs, launch readiness programs, and ecosystem intelligence in one place.

Web3 security tooling is fragmented across audits, disclosure forms, bounty platforms, spreadsheets, and social channels. Bastion acts as a coordination layer that brings security identity, disclosure workflows, project readiness, and ecosystem visibility into a single platform.

2. The Security Coordination Problem

Web3 projects often launch quickly without a unified process for security coordination. Researchers struggle to build portable reputation across projects and ecosystems. Projects struggle to present security posture clearly, define scope, receive and triage vulnerability reports, manage bounty workflows, and build trust before launch.

Ecosystems struggle to see which projects are improving security posture, which researchers are contributing, where vulnerabilities are being found, and where security gaps remain.

Existing solutions such as audits, bounty platforms, disclosure forms, and social coordination are useful but disconnected. Bastion is designed to connect these workflows without replacing specialized tools where they already work well.

3. The Bastion Platform

Bastion provides a unified security coordination layer with the following core components:

  • Researcher Passport: portable profile for security researchers.
  • Project Passport: public project security profile.
  • Security Readiness: operational readiness checklist and trust signal system.
  • Vulnerability Reporting: structured report submission, review, and lifecycle tracking.
  • Bounty Programs: project-managed programs for security work.
  • Launch Readiness Programs: pre-mainnet and testnet security coordination for projects preparing to launch.
  • Ecosystem Intelligence: ecosystem-level view of projects, researchers, accepted findings, and security activity.

4. Researcher Passports

Researcher Passports help researchers build a persistent security identity on Bastion. A passport may include profile information, verification status where applicable, specializations, accepted findings, reputation signals, ecosystem participation, and contribution history drawn from platform activity.

Researchers should not need to rebuild credibility from zero every time they work with a new project or ecosystem. Bastion surfaces platform-verified activity and project-accepted outcomes; it does not independently certify every researcher beyond what the platform actually verifies through its workflows.

5. Project Passports

Project Passports help projects communicate security posture to researchers, partners, and ecosystems. Passports may include ecosystem affiliation, in-scope assets, technology stack, disclosure policy, security contact information, bounty or launch readiness status, security readiness signals, researcher engagement, and public security history on Bastion.

Project teams are responsible for keeping passport information accurate and up to date. Bastion provides structure and visibility; projects remain accountable for the content they publish.

6. Security Readiness

Security Readiness is Bastion's operational checklist and trust signal system for project teams. It helps projects track and communicate whether key coordination items are in place, such as defined scope, disclosure policy, security contacts, program status, and ongoing researcher engagement.

Readiness signals are based on information projects publish and activity recorded on the platform. They are intended to help researchers, partners, and ecosystems evaluate coordination maturity, not to substitute for independent security review or audit outcomes.

7. Vulnerability Reporting

Bastion supports a structured report lifecycle: submission, triage, communication, review, accepted / rejected / resolved status, payout where configured, and reputation impact where applicable.

The platform provides structure and history for both researchers and projects. Projects make report acceptance decisions unless a dispute or review process applies. Sensitive report content should remain private unless disclosure is authorized by the project or applicable workflow.

8. Bounty Programs and Escrow

Bastion supports project-managed bounty programs and escrow-backed payout workflows where configured. The intended model for escrow-backed bounties is:

  • Researchers receive the full advertised reward on release.
  • Projects pay Bastion platform fees on top of researcher rewards.
  • Standard escrow platform fee: 5% (Starter / free tier where applicable).
  • Reduced subscription fee: 2.5% for eligible subscribed projects where configured.
  • Escrow-backed payouts are available only when the relevant contract and payment infrastructure is configured for that program and deployment.

Escrow V2 is designed to support explicit project-paid platform fees, where researcher reward plus Bastion platform fee equals the total project deposit. Where configured, Bastion escrow on Arbitrum can coordinate USDC-backed funding and release according to program rules.

Bastion does not represent that all bounty payments are fully escrowed on-chain. Non-escrow programs and manual payout processes may apply depending on project and ecosystem configuration.

9. Robinhood Chain Launch Readiness

One of Bastion's core objectives is helping projects establish security maturity before mainnet launch.

Many blockchain ecosystems reach a critical stage where projects are actively building, deploying testnet infrastructure, and preparing for launch, but lack the security coordination tooling needed to engage researchers in a structured way.

Robinhood Chain represents this opportunity.

Bastion's Robinhood Chain Launch Readiness framework is designed to help projects begin building a documented security history before traditional bounty infrastructure, large treasury programs, or mature ecosystem tooling exist.

Through Launch Readiness Programs, Robinhood Chain projects can:

  • Publish a public Project Passport
  • Define security scope and assets
  • Communicate disclosure policies
  • Receive structured vulnerability reports
  • Engage directly with security researchers
  • Track security readiness progress
  • Build a documented history of security activity

For researchers, Launch Readiness Programs provide an opportunity to:

  • Identify promising projects early
  • Establish relationships with project teams
  • Demonstrate expertise within a developing ecosystem
  • Build public contribution history
  • Participate in ecosystem growth before launch

Unlike traditional bug bounty platforms, Launch Readiness Programs are not solely focused on payouts. Their purpose is to create security coordination before a project reaches mainnet.

This allows projects to arrive at launch with:

  • Existing researcher relationships
  • Documented security engagement
  • Structured disclosure history
  • Improved security readiness
  • Greater confidence from users, partners, and ecosystem stakeholders

Launch Readiness participation does not guarantee compensation, token allocations, grants, employment opportunities, or future rewards. Any rewards, grants, payments, hiring opportunities, recognition programs, or token distributions remain solely at the discretion of participating projects and ecosystem stakeholders.

Bastion's role is to provide the infrastructure that allows those relationships and security activities to be coordinated transparently.

By helping projects build security maturity before launch, Bastion aims to reduce the gap between development and production readiness while creating stronger connections between researchers, projects, and emerging ecosystems.

Robinhood Chain serves as Bastion's first Launch Readiness ecosystem and demonstrates how structured security coordination can begin long before traditional bounty infrastructure becomes available.

10. Arbitrum Native Infrastructure

Arbitrum is Bastion's primary live ecosystem and intended settlement layer for escrow-backed workflows where configured. Arbitrum support includes project passports, researcher passports, bounty coordination, vulnerability reporting, ecosystem intelligence, and escrow or payment workflows when contract addresses and program settings are present in the deployment environment.

Contract deployment varies by environment. Production deployments may include escrow, disclosure registry, and subscription payment contracts on Arbitrum One when configured by the operator. Features that depend on on-chain infrastructure are enabled only when those addresses and workflows are active for the deployment you are using.

11. Ecosystem Intelligence

Bastion aggregates platform activity into ecosystem-level intelligence views. Signals may include active projects, bounty and launch readiness programs, researcher participation, accepted findings, security readiness coverage, and ecosystem activity over time.

Metrics are based on real platform records. Empty or zero states are shown honestly when activity has not yet occurred. Bastion does not claim external ecosystem-wide completeness beyond what is recorded on the platform.

12. Security and Trust Model

Bastion does not replace audits, formal verification, or independent security review. It complements audits by creating ongoing coordination and disclosure infrastructure after an audit report is delivered.

Trust on Bastion is built through platform workflows:

  • Projects publish their own passport and program information.
  • Researchers submit findings through authorized workflows.
  • Reports are reviewed and accepted or rejected through project processes.
  • Reputation signals come from platform activity and accepted outcomes.
  • Escrow applies only where configured for a given program.
  • Sensitive report data should remain private unless disclosure is authorized.

Bastion does not request private keys. Wallet authentication uses signatures (for example, Sign-In With Ethereum). Users remain responsible for wallet security, device security, and verifying transaction details before signing.

13. Monetization

Bastion is designed to support sustainable development through project subscriptions, researcher premium features where offered, ecosystem partnerships, and project-paid escrow platform fees where escrow-backed workflows apply.

Researchers should receive full advertised rewards for escrow-backed bounties. Platform fees are paid by projects on top of rewards where escrow fees apply, not deducted from researcher payouts in the intended model described above.

14. Roadmap

Bastion's direction includes ongoing work in areas such as:

  • Escrow V2 deployment and expanded payment support
  • Deeper Arbitrum ecosystem analytics
  • Robinhood Chain launch readiness expansion
  • ApeChain support
  • Improved researcher matching
  • Project risk scoring
  • Ecosystem dashboards
  • Dispute resolution improvements
  • Additional integrations with wallets and security tooling

Roadmap items reflect intended direction, not commitments with fixed delivery dates. Availability of features depends on development, configuration, and deployment choices.