The Real Cost of Trust in DeFi - Fidesium

In this episode of HardWired, Harry sits down with Abraham Polishchuk, founder and CTO of Fidesium, to explore how one of crypto’s most critical but often overlooked infrastructure layers, security auditing and developer tooling, is evolving as the industry matures. From Abraham’s early days mining Bitcoin on his laptop to building a Web3-native security firm, the conversation digs into why “code is law” no longer cuts it, and how protocols can stay safe in an era of institutional capital, AI-assisted development, and increasingly sophisticated attackers.We discuss why manual audits alone are no longer enough, how Fidesium combines human expertise with automated tooling to help teams ship faster without sacrificing safety, and what really went wrong in high-profile exploits like Kelp DAO. Abraham breaks down the key failure modes in DeFi, from broken invariants and oracle manipulation to privileged role abuse and OPSEC lapses, and explains why defense-in-depth, surface-area mapping, and real-time monitoring are now table stakes for any serious protocol.Some ideas explored:Abraham’s journey from early Bitcoin miner to Web3 security founderThe origin story behind Fidesium and its mission to raise the security bar in Web3Why institutions and mature protocols can’t rely on “no admins” idealism anymoreHow Fidesium audits code, tooling, and operational processes end-to-endThe Kelp DAO exploit: malicious RPC nodes, bad data feeds, and trusted external systemsWhy AI both helps and harms security — and why “vibe coding” is a terrible fit for DeFiHow protocols should think about risk registers, audit frequency, and change managementThe future of DeFi security as banks, regulators, and Web2 engineers enter the spaceA conversation about exploits, audits, and the infrastructure needed for crypto to stop getting hacked and start scaling safely.You can learn more about Fidesium here: https://fidesium.xyzThis episode was brought together by AlphaWire: https://alphawire.xyz