Case Study
TRIDENT
Security training platform for learning smart contract penetration testing through hands-on exploitation of intentionally vulnerable DeFi contracts.
Problem
Smart contract security is hard to learn without a safe, structured environment. Reading vulnerability writeups is not the same as writing and verifying exploits against real contract patterns — and spinning up local tooling for every exercise creates too much friction for learners.
My role
Designed and built the full stack: intentionally vulnerable Solidity challenges with Foundry tests, a Node.js backend for compilation and local exploit verification, on-chain progress tracking and soulbound certificate NFTs, and a React dApp with wallet connect and an in-browser exploit editor.
Architecture
Technical decisions
Local Foundry testing before on-chain verify
Learners compile and run exploits against Foundry tests first, then deploy and verify on Polygon Amoy. That keeps feedback fast while still ending in a real on-chain solution check.
Challenge wrappers behind a shared interface
Each challenge implements IChallenge so ChallengeFactory can register, verify and record progress uniformly — even when the underlying vulnerability patterns differ.
Soulbound milestone certificates
ERC-721 certificates at 5 / 10 / 20 solved challenges make progress visible in the wallet without turning credentials into transferable tradable assets.
Challenges
Bridging browser UX and Foundry tooling
The backend had to accept user exploit code, swap it into challenge templates, compile with solc and run Foundry tests reliably — without exposing a fragile or unsafe execution path to the learner.
Keeping challenges realistic but solvable
Each vulnerability needed enough realism to teach the pattern (reentrancy, access control, storage collision, forced ETH, flash-loan approval abuse) while remaining clear enough to complete with templates and hints.
Outcome
A hands-on smart contract pentesting learning platform with five DeFi vulnerability challenges, browser-based compile/test feedback, on-chain verification on Polygon Amoy, progress tracking and milestone certificate NFTs.