Clarity Alliance was formed in Q2 of 2024 following a series of attacks and exploits that occurred on various Stacks DeFi protocol. All these protocol had been previously audited, highlighting the lack of security expertise available in the ecosystem.

Our team of security researchers is comprised of whitehats with experience in hacking and securing DeFi not only on EVM, but on Stacks specifically. The Clarity VM is significantly different from EVM, with its own nuances that are important to consider, and whitehats with Stacks DeFi experience are still hard to come by. Before coming together as a group, our whitehats had a proven track record of collecting critical bounties on bug bounty platforms from DeFi on Stacks.
Now our security researchers have collected the most valuable experience in reviewing Stacks DeFi, reviewing and securing contracts related to each fundamental type of product in the Stacks ecosystem so far: DEXs, yield farming products, liquid staking, multisig wallets, bridges and more (see our reports section).

The Clarity Alliance team is also helping secure the Nakamoto upgrade, working together with the Stacks Foundation and Stacks core engineers.

Meet the Team

Nick

General Manager
  • General manager and team coordinator
  • Client management
  • MSc in Data Sciences, BSc in Computer Science, MA in Psychology
  • Primary point of contact -nick@clarityalliance.org
  • Renowned blockchain security expert and bounty hunter, credited with protecting millions in Total Value Locked (TVL) through critical vulnerability disclosures.
  • Extensive experience securing codebases for a diverse range of projects, with a specialization in Stacks ecosystem auditing.
  • Trusted partner to many top Stacks projects, providing rigorous code reviews and proactive security solutions.
  • One of the first to claim critical bounties in Stacks projects - Immunefi

Kristian Apostolov

Lead Security Researcher

ABA

Security Researcher
  • Bootstrapped by a cyber security career for over 8 years, ABA pivoted to securing both EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible blockchain projects and Bitcoin L2, particularly Stacks, projects.
  • Being very detail oriented with a clear focus on quality, ABA has conducted a significant number of solo and collaborative smart contract security reviews with remarkable results.
  • Code4rena
  • Sherlock
  • As a security researcher, Stormy has a strong track record in smart contract security, demonstrated by winning both the eBTC contest on Code4rena and the eBTC bug bounty on Immunefi.
  • His expertise lies in diving deep into the protocol at a core level and identifying vulnerabilities until nothing is left unchecked.
  • Code4rena
  • Immunefi

Stormy

Security Researcher

Martin Marchev

Security Researcher
  • Web3 security researcher with a proven track record in competitive audits.
  • His accomplishments include securing 1st place in the Immunefi Arbitration contest, 2nd place in the PartyDAO contest, and achieving 3x Top 10 and 5x Top 25 rankings.
  • He has responsibly disclosed multiple vulnerabilities in live protocols through Immunefi and has participated in high-profile audits for projects with over $1 billion in Total Value Locked (TVL), showcasing his expertise in tackling complex security challenges.
  • Immunefi
  • Sherlock
  • Independent security researcher with a proven track record of top placements in competitive audits across some of the biggest contest platforms like Code4rena and Sherlock, including, but not limited to: 2x 1st place, 1x 2nd place, 2x 3rd place, 2x Top 5.
  • Apart from audit contests, Arabadzhiev has also worked privately on various protocols across different ecosystems, some of which that successfully accumulated 8+ digit TVLs.
  • Code4rena
  • Sherlock

Arabadzhiev

Security Researcher