What is AURORA — and Why Does It Need to Exist?

DeFi is often described as “transparent” because every transaction is visible on-chain.

But transparency alone does not equal market integrity.

Raw blockchain data may be public, yet identifying manipulative behaviour within that data remains technically complex, fragmented, and inaccessible to most participants.

That creates a major gap:
Markets can be transparent in theory while remaining opaque in practice.

AURORA is my attempt to address that gap.

It is an early-stage DeFi market surveillance engine designed to help surface suspicious on-chain activity and explore how institutional-style surveillance principles might be adapted for decentralised financial systems.

Why build it?

Because if decentralised markets are to mature into credible financial infrastructure, they will need more than transparency—
they will need usable systems for monitoring, accountability, and market integrity.

AURORA began as research into DeFi market manipulation, later published on SSRN, and is now being developed into a live prototype to test whether that research can become practical infrastructure