Case Study
DeFi Startup: Wallet Ops & Founder OPSEC Hardening
Crypto / DeFiOrg size: 10–50 employeesFocus: Crypto OPSEC2-week engagement
Reviewed key management, founder devices, and travel patterns to close realistic routes to catastrophic loss.
Challenge
A fast-moving DeFi startup with meaningful TVL wanted a realistic view of how founders, signers, and operational processes could be abused to cause catastrophic loss—even if smart contracts were sound.
Approach
- • Mapped all wallet roles, signers, and operational flows around treasury, deployer, and operational wallets.
- • Assessed founder devices, authentication practices, and travel/remote-work patterns for realistic attacker angles.
- • Modeled phishing, SIM swap, and insider/process abuse paths rather than focusing solely on code-level risk.
- • Produced prioritized, founder-readable guidance for wallet segregation, device hardening, and on-call playbooks.
Outcomes
- • Redesigned wallet architecture and signer distribution to reduce single points of failure.
- • Hardened founder and signer devices, reducing realistic compromise paths from travel and remote work.
- • Established an internal ‘break glass’ playbook for suspected key compromise and rapid on-chain response.