Cantina x PancakeSwap in 2025: Secure DEX Infrastructure

PancakeSwap entered 2025 with a clear objective. Evolve from a successful multi chain exchange into core liquidity infrastructure that can support modern capital flows, new forms of market making, and institutional expectations around reliability and security.

PancakeSwap is already a leading multi chain decentralized exchange with two billion dollars in TVL and a broad product surface. It offers spot swaps, yield farming, staking, derivatives, and more. PancakeSwap Infinity is the newest version of the exchange, designed to make swapping and liquidity provisioning faster, cheaper, and more flexible. It uses a modular design, introduces hooks for customization, and supports different types of automated market maker pools.

To match that ambition, PancakeSwap partnered with Cantina on a 1 million USDC bug bounty program that invites the global security community to pressure test the Infinity architecture in production.

This combination of modular design and continuous incentivized review is what makes 2025 a pivotal year for both PancakeSwap and institutional DeFi participants watching the space.

A modular architecture for DEX infrastructure

PancakeSwap Infinity is built around a modular separation of responsibilities.

At the base sits a Vault contract. The vault is the global ledger for token balances. It holds funds, tracks accounting for all pools, and enforces the rules for how assets move in and out. It does not contain complex swap math or strategy logic. It is the custody and accounting layer.

Above the vault are pool managers. The initial Infinity deployment includes at least two major pool manager types.

• A concentrated liquidity pool manager that generalizes the concentrated liquidity model and focuses depth around active price ranges
  
  
• A bin based or liquidity book pool manager that structures liquidity in discrete price bins, which is well suited for stable and tightly correlated pairs
  
  

Each pool manager is responsible for creating and managing pools of its own type. It defines the pricing curve, the rules for swaps, and how liquidity positions are represented and updated for that design.

The third layer consists of hooks. Hooks are optional contracts that can be attached to a pool at creation and that run custom logic at defined points during the pool lifecycle. They allow a pool to behave differently without changing the vault or pool manager code.

Infinity also uses a singleton pattern for its pool managers. All concentrated liquidity pools share a single manager contract. All bin pools share another. This reduces deployment overhead, improves storage locality, and enables features such as flash style accounting, where multiple actions can be netted out and settled in one step for improved gas efficiency.

The impact of this architecture is straightforward.

• The vault is a narrow, auditable component with a clear mandate. It is responsible for funds, not for strategy.
  
  
• Pool managers encapsulate automated market maker behavior and can be swapped or extended without rewriting how custody works.
  
  
• Hooks allow pools to carry custom behavior while keeping extensions at the edge of the system rather than inside the core.
  
  

For institutions and builders, Infinity looks less like a monolithic protocol and more like a stack. There is a custody and accounting layer, an execution layer, and a programmable edge.

Hooks and programmable liquidity

Hooks are one of the most important innovations in PancakeSwap Infinity.

A hook is a smart contract that implements a defined interface and can be attached to a liquidity pool when that pool is created. Once attached, the hook receives callbacks from the pool manager at specific points, such as before or after swaps, before or after liquidity changes, or when certain administrative actions occur.

This lets a pool implement custom behavior. A few examples illustrate the range.

• A dynamic fee hook can increase or reduce swap fees based on volatility, volume, or other on chain signals, improving compensation for liquidity providers during turbulent periods.
  
  
• An incentive hook can distribute rewards to liquidity providers according to custom rules, such as rewarding longer term positions or specific ranges.
  
  
• An order type hook can approximate limit orders or time weighted execution by controlling how and when liquidity becomes active in a pool.
  
  
• An access control hook can gate certain interactions so that only approved addresses or conditions can trigger them.
  
  

In practical terms, hooks turn a simple automated market maker pool into a programmable liquidity engine.

For safety, Pool and hook relationships are fixed at creation. The pool encodes which callbacks the hook may use and what permissions it has. A hook might be allowed to run logic around swaps or liquidity updates, but not to pull tokens directly from the vault. These permissions are not changed after deployment.

Infinity also constrains who can call into hook entry points. Only the vault and the relevant pool manager can trigger the privileged callbacks that move funds or affect pool state. External users interact with the pool and the router, not with hooks directly. This limits the attack surface and keeps control of sensitive flows inside the core components.

From an institutional or advanced builder perspective, hooks enable on-chain strategies that previously lived only in private systems.

• A market maker can codify its fee and range management policy in a hook rather than running it off chain.
  
  
• A structured product provider can expose a pool whose behavior enforces its investment constraints.
  
  
• A compliance focused integration can include screening logic at the pool level where needed.
  
  

The important point is that Infinity gives this flexibility while keeping the core protocol smaller, more auditable, and constrained by a stable set of invariants.

Universal routing and composable liquidity

As PancakeSwap expanded from a single automated market maker design to multiple pool types, routing became a central problem. Users and integrators do not want to think about which pool to use for each trade. They want the best execution.

PancakeSwap Infinity introduces a universal router to solve this.

Instead of separate routers for each version or pool type, the universal router understands all Infinity pools connected to the vault. It can route trades through concentrated pools, bin based pools, or any other supported type, and it can compose multiple legs into a single transaction.

For example, a large swap in a volatile pair might be split between several concentrated liquidity ranges and a few supporting bin pools to minimize price impact. A stablecoin trade might be executed entirely within a tight bin range. The router constructs the path according to rules encoded in its logic and the current state of liquidity.

This matters for several reasons.

• There is a single entry point for trading. Users, applications, and institutional execution systems integrate once and gain access to the full Infinity liquidity surface.
  
  
• Routing behavior is deterministic. For a given pool state and trade parameters, the router will choose the same path. Institutions can predict how orders will be executed and can back test strategies against on chain data.
  
  
• Liquidity becomes composable. Liquidity providers can choose the pool type that best fits their strategy, while traders see a unified market surface.
  
  

Because the router and vault are tightly integrated, Infinity can also implement efficiency improvements, such as netting out token movements across multi hop routes and optimizing how native chain assets are handled.

The result is a more coherent exchange environment. Different automated market maker designs coexist and specialize, but they present as one venue to the outside world.

Why this matters through an institutional lens

For institutional users, PancakeSwap Infinity is less a feature release and more a shift in how a decentralized exchange can be structured.

First, the separation between vault, pool managers, and hooks gives a familiar control model. The vault acts as a custody and accounting layer. Pool managers implement pricing logic. Hooks sit at the edge as opt-in extensions. Each layer has a clear risk perimeter. This makes it easier to map Infinity into existing risk frameworks and to run targeted reviews on the components that matter most for a given integration.

Second, execution is predictable and inspectable. The universal router and immutable core contracts define how trades move through liquidity. Given the same state and parameters, the same route is chosen. Institutions can pre compute how orders will behave, measure routing quality over time, and reconstruct execution paths for post trade analysis.

Third, the platform is composable without becoming opaque. Hooks and new pool managers can extend Infinity, but they must work within the interfaces and invariants set by the vault and router. Institutions can choose to interact only with pools and hooks that meet internal standards, while still benefiting from the broader innovation happening around the protocol.

Finally, the transparency of the implementation matters. The contracts are verifiable on chain and the code is open. Combined with the Cantina bug bounty program, this gives institutions multiple layers of assurance. They can read the code, watch how it behaves in production, and see that the protocol has invited continued scrutiny instead of treating security as a one time event.

Together, these properties make Infinity feel less like an experimental venue and more like infrastructure that can sit under real capital and operational commitments.

Cantina, PancakeSwap Infinity, and the one million dollar bug bounty

Architectural choices only matter if they are matched by an outstanding security posture. For Infinity, PancakeSwap and Cantina approached security through continuous incentive rather than one moment in time.

PancakeSwap launched a one million USDC bug bounty program for Infinity on the Cantina platform. The goal is simple. Encourage the best security researchers in the world to examine Infinity in depth and reward them generously if they find weaknesses before attackers do.

The bounty covers the core components that matter most for user safety.

• The Infinity Vault, which holds user assets and enforces accounting rules
  
  
• Pool managers for concentrated liquidity and bin based pools
  
  
• Position managers and supporting contracts that track liquidity positions
  
  
• The universal router that orchestrates multi pool trade execution
  
  
• Helper contracts such as quoters, fee helpers, distributors, campaign managers, harvest receivers and keepers
  
  
• Official hooks, such as dynamic fee hooks, that can influence how pools behave
  
  

Rewards are structured by impact. Critical findings that could lead to loss of user funds or systemic failure are eligible for the highest payouts. Lower severity issues still receive meaningful rewards, so there is no incentive to ignore anything.

Running a one million dollar bounty at this scale does a few important things.

• It acknowledges that no complex system is ever finished from a security standpoint. There is always value in more eyes and more perspectives.
  
  
• It turns the global security community into an extended review team. Researchers who might not have participated in a closed engagement now have a clear channel and incentive to contribute.
  
  
• It gives users and institutions a visible signal of seriousness. A protocol that is willing to pay out significant rewards for responsible disclosure is clearly aligning incentives with its users.
  
  

Cantina’s role is to provide the infrastructure and access to its elite security research network. 

The platform gives PancakeSwap a structured way to manage reports, triage any potential issues, and coordinate with researchers, while giving researchers clarity on scope, rewards, and expectations.

For an institutional audience, that kind of ongoing pressure testing is as important as any individual code change.

How 2026 could look for Infinity and modular DEX infrastructure

The design decisions behind Infinity point toward how decentralized exchange infrastructure may evolve over the next cycle.

Programmable liquidity is likely to become standard rather than niche. As more hooks are developed, liquidity provision starts to look like deploying a strategy, not just depositing tokens. Institutions can encode risk rules, fee logic, or rebalancing policies in code and expose them through pools. Retail users can access those strategies through simple positions without having to manage complexity directly.

Routing should become more unified across environments. Infinity’s universal router already hides differences between pool types on one chain. The natural extension is routing that spans multiple chains and venues, with bridges and messaging abstracted away. Execution systems that sit on top of this will let institutional desks focus on constraints and objectives, while the underlying infrastructure handles path selection.

Security expectations will continue to rise. A standing seven figure bug bounty sets a reference point. In 2026,  protocols will be expected to show ongoing engagement with security researchers, clear incident response processes, and continuous monitoring. For Infinity, the combination of modular design and an open incentive program places it on the right side of that trend.

Automated market maker infrastructure will also become more specialized. Different asset classes and products need different curve behavior and fee models. Infinity’s architecture allows new pool managers to be added for specific use cases while reusing the same vault and routing base. That makes it possible to host pools tuned for stable pairs, volatile assets, tokenized treasuries, or structured payoffs under a single coherent system.

If these trends play out, PancakeSwap Infinity becomes more than a 2025 upgrade. It becomes an early example of what institutional grade, modular, programmable exchange infrastructure can look like, and a basis for building more targeted products on top.

Closing thoughts

In 2025, Cantina and PancakeSwap Infinity together demonstrated how a major exchange can modernize its core infrastructure and its security posture at the same time.

As 2026 approaches, the protocols that pair modular engineering with incentivized security programs will be the ones best positioned to attract and retain institutional participation. PancakeSwap Infinity, and the collaboration around its bug bounty on Cantina, is one of the clearest examples of that direction in practice.

If you are preparing a major protocol upgrade, designing new liquidity infrastructure, or planning a large scale bug bounty, we can help you structure the right security program. 

Contact us to discuss your 2026 security roadmap and how Cantina can support your next launch.