Again, the smart insider doesn’t have to write the vulnerability, they just have to (with much greater access to code and infra than an outsider) notice it and

Again, the smart insider doesn’t have to write the vulnerability, they just have to (with much greater access to code and infra than an outsider) notice it and not say anything (except to the outsider they sell it to). Selling such a vulnerability is a lot easier and safer than other ways of illegally monetizing a “hack”—your biggest risk is that you won’t get paid and will have no recourse, if you don’t get the money up-front, or that you do get paid but then someone else fixes the vulnerability before it can be used (that’s probably the worst likely outcome) [edit] before it can be used to claim the bounty, that is—part of why this is relatively safe and so fairly tempting if the pot is big enough is that the money looks legitimate without some serious digging, so if some of it goes in a crypto wallet and sits there for a couple years then quietly gets siphoned off and laundered until it becomes fiat in the insider’s pocket, well, that’s probably gonna fly under everyone’s radar.