How to Identify and Fix Smart Contract Bugs for Your Token
A bug in your token's smart contract can lead to drained liquidity, failed transactions, or lost funds. This guide provides a structured approach to finding, testing, and fixing common vulnerabilities before you launch. Using proper tools and audits can save your project from critical failure.
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The Problem
Traditional solutions are complex, time-consuming, and often require technical expertise.
The Solution
Spawned provides an AI-powered platform that makes building fast, simple, and accessible to everyone.
The Best Way to Handle Smart Contract Bugs
Pre-launch audits are 95% cheaper than post-exploit recoveries.
For creators launching on Solana, the most effective strategy is prevention through structured testing and a verified audit path. Do not rely on finding and fixing bugs after your token is live on mainnet. The cost of a post-launch exploit typically exceeds $250,000 in lost funds and reputational damage, while a pre-launch audit costs between $5,000 and $15,000.
Our recommendation is to build your token using a platform like Spawned.com, which provides a vetted, audited smart contract framework. This eliminates common coding errors and provides a secure base. For custom logic, always budget for and complete a professional audit from firms like Ottersec or Neodyme before your token generation event (TGE).
5 Common Smart Contract Bugs on Solana
Understanding these vulnerabilities is the first step to fixing them. Here are the most frequent issues found in Solana token programs.
- Insufficient Validation of Program Derived Addresses (PDAs): Failing to properly validate PDAs can allow malicious actors to pass in incorrect accounts, leading to unauthorized fund transfers.
- Cross-Program Invocation (CPI) Reentrancy: While different from Ethereum, improper state handling during CPIs can still lead to similar reentrancy-like exploits where logic is bypassed.
- Integer Overflow/Underflow: Arithmetic operations without safe math libraries can cause unexpected wrapping of numbers, affecting token balances and calculations.
- Missing Owner Checks: Critical functions (like minting, freezing, or burning) must verify the signer is the update authority. Missing checks let anyone call these functions.
- Incorrect Account Discriminators: In Anchor frameworks, mismatched account discriminators can cause the program to deserialize data incorrectly, leading to failed transactions or corrupted state.
Step-by-Step Process to Find and Fix a Bug
Follow this actionable sequence if you suspect a bug in your deployed or undeployed contract.
Pre-Launch Fix vs. Post-Launch Emergency Response
Finding a bug after launch limits your fixes and destroys trust.
The context of when you find a bug drastically changes your options and costs.
| Aspect | Pre-Launch (Before TGE) | Post-Launch (After TGE) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Audit fees: $5K-$15K. Testing time. | Exploit losses (often 100% of LP), legal fees, redeploy costs. |
| Time | 2-4 weeks for audit and fixes. | Days to weeks of crisis management, often too late for funds. |
| Options | Full code refactor, multiple audit rounds, use a secure launchpad. | Only possible if contract is upgradeable; otherwise, abandon and relaunch. |
| Holder Trust | Builds confidence. | Often destroyed permanently; community leaves. |
Key Takeaway: The 0.1 SOL launch fee on Spawned includes the use of a rigorously tested contract template, making pre-launch security the default.
Why Professional Audits Are Non-Negotiable
Many creators ask if they can skip an audit for a 'simple' token. The answer is no for any project with meaningful value. A 2023 analysis showed that over 70% of major Solana token exploits stemmed from unaudited contracts or audits that only covered a portion of the code.
A proper audit is not a generic review. It involves manual line-by-line analysis and automated tooling (like Slither or Secora) to find edge cases you missed. For a token with a 0.30% creator fee, losing the entire project to a bug means forfeiting all future revenue. Platforms like Spawned mitigate this by using a base contract that has undergone multiple audits, providing a security foundation so you can focus on your custom tax or reward logic.
Consider an audit an insurance policy. For a token aiming to hold $100,000 in liquidity, a $10,000 audit is a 10% cost that protects the other 90%.
Launch Your Token on a Secure Foundation
Don't let a preventable bug derail your project before it starts. By launching on Spawned, you start with an audited smart contract framework and an integrated AI website builder, saving you both security headaches and monthly fees.
You retain a 0.30% creator fee on all trades and can offer 0.30% holder rewards directly through the contract. The launch process guides you through safe deployment for a one-time cost of 0.1 SOL.
Start your secure token launch on Spawned and build on a foundation designed to prevent common bugs.
Related Topics
Frequently Asked Questions
No. If your token's program is deployed with an immutable flag, the code cannot be changed. Your only recourse is to communicate the issue to holders, abandon the contract, and launch a new, corrected token. This is why extensive pre-launch testing and using upgradeable contracts (with clear multi-sig governance) are critical.
Costs vary by audit firm and contract complexity. For a standard SPL token with basic features, expect to pay between $5,000 and $10,000. For tokens with complex staking, bonding curves, or custom tax logic, audits can range from $15,000 to $30,000. This is a vital investment compared to potential losses.
A bug is an error or flaw in the contract's code. An exploit is the act of a malicious actor using that bug to drain funds or manipulate the contract's intended behavior. Not all bugs are exploitable, but any bug has the potential to become an exploit. The goal is to find and fix bugs before exploiters do.
While no platform can guarantee 100% bug-free code, using Spawned significantly reduces risk. It provides a standard, audited contract template for core token functionality. This eliminates common errors in deployment, ownership, and basic transfers. You are still responsible for auditing any custom, project-specific logic you add on top of the base template.
Aim for a minimum of 2-3 weeks of dedicated testing. This should include one week of internal unit and integration testing, followed by a 1-2 week professional audit cycle. For larger projects, consider a public testnet phase where a select community can interact with the contract to uncover unexpected edge cases.
Key warning signs include: transactions failing with obscure program errors, token balances not updating correctly, the inability to perform basic actions like transferring or burning, and any unexpected behavior in your project's UI when interacting with the contract. If you see this, halt interactions and revert to testing immediately.
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