Certora, Cork, Hypernative Partner for Web3 Security

The partnership establishes Certora as Cork’s Security Partner of Record, embedding security at every layer of the protocol’s lifecycle from design and verification through deployment, monitoring, and operations. This represents a fundamental shift from traditional point-in-time audits toward what Cork CTO Baptiste Florentin describes as ‘a holistic, end-to-end security discipline.’ Florentin emphasized that ‘business-as-usual security just doesn’t cut it in DeFi,’ particularly for protocols like Cork that are building critical market infrastructure where the risks are substantial and real.

Certora brings its formal verification technology, including its flagship Prover product already used by major protocols like Aave, Lido, and Maker, to catch rare and hard-to-find bugs before deployment. Meanwhile, Hypernative contributes sophisticated real-time monitoring that tracks both onchain and offchain data sources, using machine learning models, heuristics, simulations, and graph-based detections to identify over 300 distinct risk types. The integration creates what the companies describe as the first comprehensive security framework specifically designed for next-generation onchain finance.

The timing of this partnership reflects growing alarm within the industry about escalating security threats. According to the FBI’s 2024 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) report cited in the announcement, crypto-related fraud accounted for $9.3 billion in losses—a dramatic 66% increase from the previous year—with nearly 150,000 complaints involving digital assets. This staggering figure underscores the limitations of current security approaches and the urgent need for more robust protection mechanisms as the Web3 ecosystem continues to scale.

Certora CEO Seth Hallem framed the partnership as part of a broader mission to ‘bring the rigor of enterprise-grade assurance, used in industries like aeronautics and finance, to decentralized systems.’ Rather than simply helping one protocol, Hallem sees the collaboration as helping ‘redefine how Web3 handles risk, transparency, and operational resilience.’ This vision aligns with Hypernative CEO Gal Sagie’s observation that ‘Web3 security is taking another leap today to filter out the bad actors in this industry’ while simultaneously ‘raising the risk standards for everyone operating in this space.’

Cork’s role in the partnership centers on its pioneering work as a programmable risk layer for onchain assets, including vault tokens, yield-bearing stablecoins, liquid (re)staking tokens, and real-world assets (RWAs). The protocol enables asset managers and issuers to create custom swap markets that enhance redemption liquidity, risk transparency, and market confidence. Backed by prominent investors including a16z crypto, OrangeDAO, and Steakhouse Financial, Cork is specifically focused on building the risk infrastructure needed to bring institutional capital into onchain credit markets.

The combined capabilities of the three companies create what the announcement describes as ‘institutional-grade safeguards and proactive risk mitigation.’ By integrating formal verification with real-time monitoring and programmable risk management, the partnership aims to create systems that are not only safer for users but also more robust and scalable for developers. This approach represents a maturation of Web3 security practices, moving beyond reactive measures toward embedded security-by-design principles that can keep pace with the complexity of modern decentralized finance.

As the Web3 ecosystem continues to evolve and attract more institutional participation, partnerships like this one between Certora, Cork, and Hypernative may establish new benchmarks for security expectations. The collaboration demonstrates how specialized security companies can combine their expertise to address the unique challenges of decentralized systems, potentially setting a template for future security integrations across the industry as it works to overcome the trust barriers that have limited broader adoption.