Case Studies/Helix Markets
What happens after the audit PDF — when no one stays on the system
Helix had already paid for a one-off security review. Code shipped, the engagement ended, and the protocol kept changing. Avenza became the partner that did not leave.
- Prior orphaned audit
- 1
- Threat watch
- 24/7
- Engineering cover
- Retained
The challenge
The gap after delivery
The last auditor delivered findings, invoiced, and disappeared. Helix kept shipping upgrades. Neither security nor compliance had an owner as the codebase and the market moved.
- Critical logic had been patched once; subsequent releases were never re-scoped.
- Incident response lived in a shared chat with no SLA and no war-room.
- Infrastructure scale was treated as an engineering problem, separate from residual audit risk.
What Avenza did
One continuous workstream
Avenza converted a closed audit into a continuous security retainer: re-baseline the live contracts, watch the mempool, and keep senior engineers on the same account through every upgrade.
- Re-audited the current mainnet surface, not the snapshot from the previous report.
- Installed ongoing threat monitoring and an incident desk with a sub-15-minute escalation path.
- Tied protocol upgrades to regression review so new code could not reopen closed findings.
- Held a retained maintenance layer so scale events did not orphan the security posture.
Outcomes
Cover that did not end
Helix stopped buying security as a project. The same team that knew the contracts was still watching them six months later.
- Prior critical findings re-verified against live code, not the old commit.
- Upgrade path now includes a security gate before each mainnet push.
- Incident desk used twice in the first quarter — contained before user funds moved.
- Avenza Standard retained mark used with market-makers and listing partners.
“The work used to end when the report arrived. That was the risk. Avenza stayed with the system.”
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Ready to unify security and compliance?
Avenza stays on the account — so the system is not unmonitored the day after delivery.