audit

Google DeepMind released the first comprehensive empirical assessment of automation in machine learning research and development in the Gemini 4 Argon security report. The conclusion is that AI has not accelerated the R&D of AI itself, despite the fact that AI has written most of the code delivered by the lab's engineers. Researcher Haydn Belfield, who participated in the assessment, stated on X that there is currently no significant end-to-end ML R&D acceleration, so the risks of AI-driven ML R&D are currently low.The team built an internal index, GCI v1, which synthesizes the scores of 123 AI models across 92 benchmarks into a single value. The cutting-edge Gemini capabilities are improving at a stable rate of about 0.1 GCI points per month, with Gemini 1.5 Pro approaching 0.5 points by the end of 2024, Gemini 3.8 Flash slightly above 2.9 points by September 2026, and Argon about 3.3 points above the trend line. However, Belfield noted that this is due to increased computing power and organizational investment, rather than AI-driven acceleration.Over 75% of the code produced by DeepMind is written by AI, and the proportion of fully delegated code merge requests increased from 7.5% to 11.9% between April and September, but about 88% of requests still require multiple rounds of human guidance or manual writing. A survey of 12 senior researchers showed that automation is highest in clearly defined, verifiable execution tasks and lowest in areas such as open science concepts, new experimental designs, and unstable diagnostic training.

According to The Defiant, Jupiter has launched a beta trading product called YOLO, which supports up to 1000 times leverage, and this product has not yet been audited.According to the official statement, users trade against the platform's capital pool (house) in this product. When the capital pool is insufficient, users' profits will be queued for processing, and there is no guaranteed payment time.

The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has issued a circular on the audit of reserve assets, clarifying the minimum requirements for independent audits of Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP). VASP must maintain reserves of no less than 100% of customer liabilities throughout the review period and hold the same virtual assets in a 1:1 ratio, conducting daily reconciliations.The audit scope must cover hot wallets, warm wallets, cold wallets, third-party wallet infrastructure, and third-party custodial assets, and verify customer asset segregation, wallet control, and whether there is any re-staking, lending, or other usage scenarios.

ChainCatcher live report, at the OKX NOW Global Product and Ecosystem Conference (Singapore), Star stated that the cryptocurrency industry will enter a mainstream phase starting in 2025. He reviewed that the industry has gone through four stages: geek exploration, formation of financial markets, ICO and DeFi experiments, and compliance construction. Currently, OKX has obtained licenses or is under regulation in markets such as the United States, Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Australia, Brazil, and Turkey.He added that Deloitte has become OKX's global auditing firm, and OKX may be one of the few international exchanges currently audited globally by one of the Big Four accounting firms.

Cindy Leow, co-founder of the Solana perpetual contract exchange Drift (now Velocity), stated thatVelocity has completed audits with OtterSec and Asymmetric Research this week and is fully open-sourced, with the exchange restarting today.At the same time, as the exchange restarts and enters the next phase, she will step down. Previously, ChainCatcher reported on April 1 that Velocity was hacked by North Korean hackers due to a security vulnerability, resulting in a theft of $295 million.

According to the official announcement, the Bitcoin sidechain Liquid Network developed by Blockstream has initiated an independent external security audit for Elements v23.3.4, providing additional security verification for the recovery of Peg-out operations.Meanwhile, the Liquid Federation is coordinating an update to the PAK list, including replacing existing key entries and ensuring that all Peg-out keys are securely stored in cold wallets. The official statement indicates that progress on the recovery will be announced later.

The Arbitrum Foundation announced the launch of the Arbitrum Security Program, providing smart contract audit subsidies for teams building projects on the Arbitrum platform, covering applications on the testnet, mainnet projects, projects migrating from other blockchains, and exclusive Arbitrum chains.

According to CoinDesk, the stablecoin payment company RedotPay, headquartered in Hong Kong, announced on Monday that it has completed financial audits and compliance reviews for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing, both of which were conducted by one of the Big Four accounting firms. This move is a necessary preparatory step for applying for an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States.

The Hong Kong Accounting and Financial Reporting Council (AFRC) announced the signing of a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, expanding regulatory cooperation beyond the oversight of financial reporting and related auditing work of listed entities.This includes the financial and compliance reporting of licensed corporations, SFC-licensed virtual asset service providers, SFC-recognized funds, and registered open-ended fund companies, as well as the related auditing and assurance work conducted by their auditors.

The Tesla team arrived in Ningbo on September 16 and launched a new round of mass production audit for the robotics business on September 17. This audit aims to review the exclusivity and consistency of the mass production of the Optimus robot, with plans to roll out approximately 50,000 Optimus robots by 2026.

The synthetic dollar agreement Ethena announced that it has completed a SOC 2 Type II audit based on Security Trust Services Criteria, receiving an unqualified opinion from an independent auditor with zero exceptions. SOC 2 is a widely recognized standard for enterprise-level operational security assurance, independently auditing Ethena's actual operations in access control, change management, monitoring, and incident response.Unlike the Type I report, which only examines the design of controls at a specific point in time, Type II assesses whether these controls have been effectively operating over a period. The audit covers the infrastructure and processes supporting its products, complementing the smart contract audits and security reviews covering the Ethena protocol. Ethena stated that it will continue to maintain SOC 2 coverage, with the complete report available to partners under NDA. Ethena joins the list of on-chain enterprises that have completed SOC 2 Type II, including Circle, Chainlink, and Aave.

The on-chain central bank project The Standard Reserve announced on X that the project will launch on September 14. The project was initiated by developer 0xBeans and released its white paper on August 23, positioning itself as a revised version of Olympus DAO (OHM), with plans to launch on the Robinhood Chain. Currently, the project is in the audit and whitelist allocation phase, and there are no tokens or NFTs available for trading.In terms of the issuance mechanism, the system only references the official Uniswap v4 pool's ETH/$STANDARD net ETH flow. When the net flow is positive, issuance will expand, and protocol fees will be used to accumulate reserve assets; when the net flow is negative, issuance will be reduced, shifting towards the buyback and destruction of STANDARD. The total supply of STANDARD is capped at 1 billion, with 100 million injected into the protocol as permanently held Uniswap v4 liquidity provider across all ranges at genesis, and the remaining 900 million allocated for long-term issuance budget.

Blockchain security company Hacken released an assessment report indicating that approximately half of the circulating USDT (about $91.3 billion on the Tron network) is controlled by a 2-of-3 multi-signature contract, which lacks built-in delays, cancellation processes, or reliable revocation mechanisms. Attackers only need to compromise two signature keys to change contract ownership, mint tokens, freeze addresses, clear frozen balances, or set transfer fees without accessing any user wallets. Hacken also discovered that Tether reuses the same set of six signature keys across three chains: Ethereum, Avalanche, and Celo, posing a risk of cross-chain spread.Meanwhile, stablecoin rating agency Bluechip upgraded Tether's company rating from D to C, citing that KPMG's audit showed Tether's reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.8 billion as of December 31, 2025. This is the first time Bluechip has adopted the expanded SMIDGE methodology, which incorporates Hacken's technical risk analysis. However, Hacken only gave USDT a cybersecurity score of 3.3 out of 10 and pointed out that the USDT smart contract does not have automatic reserve proof checks or a token minting cap. Once signers authorize a transaction, the contract can mint an unlimited number of tokens without a bank reserve proof.Hacken stated that it has not yet completed an equivalent assessment of Circle's USDC, and Bluechip's previous B+ rating for USDC was based on an old methodology, which cannot be directly used for technical comparison.

According to Bitcoin.com, the Chilean cryptocurrency exchange Orionx announced the cessation of operations and the suspension of user withdrawals. A forensic audit revealed that over 7 million dollars in custodial assets were transferred to wallets outside the company's control, creating a funding gap.Orionx accused two founding partners, Joaquín Díaz and Roberto Zibert, along with other former employees, of being involved in the related transactions and has reported the matter to the Chilean National Prosecutor's Office. The related complaint alleges that the transactions occurred between 2018 and 2021.The Chilean Financial Market Commission (CMF) stated that Orionx was not authorized to provide cryptocurrency financial services, and its operations did not comply with the provisions of the Financial Technology Law. Orionx stated that it could not guarantee users the recovery of all funds.

The blockchain verification and auditing platform Assure DeFi announced that it will cease operations and will no longer accept new business. The company stated that it has completed verification for over 1,500 projects, involving a total project value of over $2 billion.Existing KYC and audit records will remain valid and will continue to be publicly accessible after the closure. The team stated that in the future, they will focus their main efforts on their artificial intelligence agent team business, Brainverse.

The blockchain security audit platform Sherlock today announced the launch of the Sherlock Audit Engine. This engine integrates the most powerful AI security methods into a collaborative review process, aiming to usher in a new era of AI-native security audits.Sherlock stated that the team has spent months building this engine in a private environment and has tested it on high-risk code. The Audit Engine is now officially live and can conduct coordinated AI security reviews on code such as smart contracts.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, in an interview with The Block, responded to ongoing criticisms raised after KPMG U.S. completed its first full financial audit. He stated that some critics are unable to admit that their past judgments about Tether were wrong, and said, "Honestly, I don't care." Ardoino mentioned that Tether has repeatedly proven its resilience.He noted that in 2022, Tether processed $7 billion in redemptions within 48 hours, which was about 10% of its reserves at the time, and there was no pause in redemptions during that period. He believes that many traditional financial institutions would struggle to handle withdrawals of a similar scale in such a short time. He also stated that criticism itself is not a bad thing, as it makes Tether better and stronger. Even if some critics view it as a "villain," as long as Tether can continue to serve its claimed 650 million users who rely on USDT, especially in emerging markets, he does not mind.According to informed sources, Tether, as a private company, will not publicly share audited financial statements. The company plans to conduct a full audit once a year in the future while continuing to release quarterly attestation reports. Overall, the KPMG audit is an important step for Tether to enhance transparency, but controversies surrounding its reserves, disclosure levels, and systemic impact have not completely dissipated.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform that the 256 Foundation has launched the 256 Red Team security project, which audits ASIC miner firmware through reverse engineering, real-time traffic capture, and reconciliation by share level. The team stated that 41 issue reports have been submitted regarding the original Bitmain firmware as well as third-party firmware such as LuxOS, VNISH, and Braiins OS.Identified issues include unauthenticated factory APIs, paths that allow root access, default credentials, built-in vendor SSH keys, and updaters that cannot verify installed content. After reverse engineering the Bitmain miner daemon and checking real-time connections, researchers reported that no evidence of hash power hijacking, remote kill switches, or hidden beacons was found in the original Bitmain firmware; the related risks are mainly concentrated in third-party "optimized" firmware.Researchers have submitted 3 responsible disclosures to VNISH, Luxor, and Braiins, granting each party 30 days to respond before public disclosure. MicroBT, Canaan, Auradine, Bitdeer, and ePIC will undergo follow-up audits.