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HackerOne Bug Bounty Program Can Pay Bitcoin to White Hat Hackers with Coinbase Partnership

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:40 PM
Caleb Chen
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:40 PM

Bug bounty hunters, or white hat hackers, around the world, that use the popular platform HackerOne can now be paid in Bitcoin. Earlier today, Coinbase announced a partnership with HackerOne, a  This means that internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo! can now pay bug finders in Bitcoin. In fact, HackerOne’s many bug bounty hunters can select Bitcoin as their preferred payout option. Compared with the other payment options present for HackerOne, which services an intrinsically international conglomerate of companies and hackers, Coinbase and Bitcoin allow bug bounty hunters to save up to 5% per transaction.

With Coinbase’s recent expansion to 18 European countries, bug bounty hunters in Europe and America will be able to cash out bitcoins received into their preferred fiat currency. For those in other countries, different Bitcoin off-ramping services will have to be used. Even with the use of an additional third party, the fees could still be significantly less than conventional methods.

Coinbase Uses HackerOne for Bug Bounty Payment Too

For seven months now, Coinbase has been using HackerOne to host its bug bounty reward system, which previously existed by itself. Using HackerOne, Coinbase has closed 84 bugs and paid out 59 different hackers. Yahoo! has paid out over $700,000 to 600 hackers in their time with HackerOne. It’s easy to imagine at least a handful of said hackers demanding to be paid in Bitcoin with the new functionality available.

As most of the world is already familiar with, black hat hackers also prefer to be paid in Bitcoin. This was evidenced by the Celebgate incident as well as the Snappening. Elsewhere, companies and individuals around the world are still falling victim to the cryptolocker virus which encrypts valuable files and refuses to decrypt unless paid Bitcoin. Other hacker groups, such as w0rm, also refuse payment in anything besides Bitcoin.

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