Substratum (SUB) Users Notice Bloated Code and Smart Contract Risks

[Pegasus]

Substratum (SUB) drew closer scrutiny of its code base after a member of the team boasted of reaching more than two million lines of code in a recent tweet. Reddit commenters also pointed out a potentially fatal flaw in one of the project’s smart contracts.

Did you know that the @SubstratumNet #DevelopmentTeam  has merged in 173 feature commits and with nearly 2 MILLION lines of code to our public code repository since since open sourcing on March 12th? #continuousDelivery #passion $SUB pic.twitter.com/XLMWoDjShu

— B.J. ALLMON [Gives Away Tweets, Not Crypto] (@bjallmon) August 15, 2018

Substratum is a project aiming to optimize spare computing power by allowing the creation of a decentralized network that records and utilizes the spare capacity. With this approach, Substratum resembles projects like Golem (GNT), Siacoin (SC) and Maidsafe (MAID).

The Substratum ecosystem relies on a token burn smart contract, which, however, might allow developers to return some of the coins from circulation.

“There is absolutely nothing stopping minting tokens + selling the “burned” tokens in an exit scam. Their contract can be abused in a similar function with [Oyster Protocol] PRL, In fact the Substratum contact function is even more desirable to abuse since it doesn't require the culprit to send any Eth to collect the freshly minted SUB,” warned Reddit user renzyfrenzy.

Oyster Protocol pulled a self-sabotaging exit scam as the founder and lead developer minted new tokens and sold them on the open market, tanking the price and causing the PRL asset to be delisted.

While Substratum is not known for Oyster Protocol-style internal conflicts, the smart contract approach once again raises the issue of the need for security audits, as well as the potential of developer teams to dictate the fate of token assets. Token-based projects often have the capability of controlling the tokens in various ways, which also means the contracts may be exploited.

Additionally, a recent blog commented on Substratum’s approach to burning tokens by sending them to an address where the private key is, allegedly, unknown. There is no actual token burn or account freeze function, Yagami Light explained in a blog post.

The news failed to affect the SUB market price, which has hovered sideways for months. SUB trades around $0.10, down 96% from its peak value of $3.25 achieved on January 9, 2018.

Source