Prominent Hacker Heads to Crypto VC Firm Paradigm

In September, white-hat hacker samczsun rescued nearly $10 million in ETH from being stolen. Now, he’s nabbed a job with Paradigm, a venture capital firm for crypto assets and blockchain startups.

Matt Huang, co-founder and managing partner of Paradigm, told Decrypt that samczsun will “bring his security and audit expertise to the portfolio.” That portfolio already includes investments in decentralized exchange Uniswap, Ethereum wallet Argent, censorship resistant Keep Network, and decentralized storage platform Sia.

Non-hackers may recognize the moniker from a September hacking operation in which samczsun discovered 25,000 ETH (then worth $9.6 million) sitting in a vulnerable smart contract belonging to Defi Project Lien Finance. Knowing the money was bound to be stolen, samczsun and associates worked to move the money to safety without drawing attention to bots looking to exploit smart contracts.

Hacker Saves $10 Million in Ethereum From Inevitable Theft

A blockchain security researcher and whitehat hacker, known as samczsun, today published a detailed “post mortem” of an undercover operation that resulted in the rescue of 25,000 ETH, worth over $9.6 million at the time. The funds were saved from a vulnerable Ethereum smart contract. How do you rescue 10 million dollars from a vulnerable smart contract without letting attackers know it’s there? Last Tuesday, @epheph, @sparkpool_eth, @tzhen, @wadealexc, and I found out.https://t.co/WOjO651VIw —...

It’s another splashy hire for Paradigm, co-founded by Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. 

In July, Paradigm welcomed Gus Coldebella, the former Acting General Counsel of the US Department of Homeland Security, as its general counsel. Coldebella merged government experience with crypto knowhow, having previously served as chief legal officer for Circle, which issues the USD Coin stablecoin along with Coinbase. 

Huang told Decrypt, “Paradigm is focused on building a truly crypto-native team that deeply understands the frontier of crypto. We want to be able to help our portfolio with everything from high level strategy and recruiting, to mechanism design and engineering.”