Hopes of an earlier iOS 10 jailbreak release shot up when news broke that aside from Apple, Zerodium will pay a whopping $1.5 million bounty for a completed and remote jailbreak. In comparison, the reward from Apple was set only at $200,000. But none of these seeming motivators will lead to a public jailbreak.
Obviously in Apple's case the intention is to prevent a cracked iOS 10 from reaching the jailbreak fans and the tech giant is willing to pay up top dollar for that. But Zerodium, according to YouTube channel iCrackUriDevice, is not any better. The outfit would actually want to preempt the release of a public jailbreak for the purpose of monetizing it.
It is not in the interest of Zerodium for the jailbreak community to get the modified iOS 10 for free. The firm is willing to shell out $1.5 million to actually suppress the public debut of the next jailbreak for the simple reason that it plans to sell the tool to the highest bidder. These entities could be governments that likely will utilize the jailbreak for intelligence gathering (also reads: spying activities) or parties in the business of spreading malware for financial gains.
So the Zerodium bounty is likely to speed up the completion of ongoing jailbreak works but jailbreak fans their hands on the tool/s is another thing. The most likely scenario, iCrackUriDevice said, is that Zerodium will only provide the jailbreak for a hefty price, essentially defeating the whole purpose of the jailbreak community.
Thankfully, iCrackUriDevice is confident that the lure of money will not tempt the likes of Pangu Team, Luca Todesco and iH8sn0w. These jailbreak actors so far have proven that iOS 10 can be jailbroken but only one will likely provide a public build.
The last heard from Todesco is that he's reportedly testing the possibility of delivering the next jailbreak via a Safari browser exploit. But for the most part, a jailbreak from him is not expected anytime soon.
In the case of iH8sn0w, Jailbreak & Hacks reported that the dev "won't release a jailbreak, but it shows an iOS 10 jailbreak is possible and, almost more importantly, that Cydia works out of the box without requiring a major update from Saurik." Saurik, also known as Jay Freeman, is the creator of jailbreak tweaks and apps source Cydia.
And that leaves Pangu as the most likely source of an iOS 10-based jailbreak. Saurik, in fact, agreed that the Chinese hacking team will be responsible for the next public jailbreak but the timing remains a big question mark. The hope though is that the next jailbreak release date will happen before yearend.