ive seen the security bounty page before (many years ago) but i thought it was denominated in grams of Au instead of USD? or has it always been USD and im just remembering wrong?
Your memory is correct.
Security bounties was announced in 2013 and initially rewards are in ounce of gold, exactly as you recalled.
Before finding the announcement thread, I checked Wayback machine but the first snapshot was in May 2021 and I actually thought you remembered it incorrectly.
May 2021 snapshot with rewards in bitcoin.
That was changed years ago.
I am still unsure when it was changed as in the thread, the reward was still in XAU in 2017 and 2018. No announcement from theymos about the change.
Added:
Extra bountiesThese bounties use a separate system of calculation, but are subject to the same conditions as above.
- 1 XAU: Find the email address of user
DefaultTrust and explain in detail how you did it.
Troy ounces of gold.
My guess, theymos changed it in May 2021 and made that snapshot on Wayback machine. It it was, that makes sense if theymos wanted to award as highest as possible in value for security bounty hunters. As since 2018, price of bitcoin is better than gold and has been continuing to rise more. Risk of dead for Bitcoin has been becoming smaller and smaller.