04 — Trusted setup · Failure mode

Ceremony as security theatre

The ceremony is run and marketed as proof of trustworthiness while the real risks — an underconstrained circuit, an unaudited verifier, a privileged upgrade key — go unaddressed. Attention is spent where it buys the least security.

By MarketComp Updated 2026-09-12 v1.3 About the authors Changelog

Mitigation

Rank the ceremony against the other risks in the system honestly. For most deployments the circuit and the verifier are far likelier failure points than the setup, and should receive proportionally more budget.

Cite this page

MarketComp (2026). Ceremony as security theatre. The ZK Field Manual (Version 1.3). MarketComp. https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/ceremony-as-security-theatre/

@misc{zkfieldmanual-ceremony-as-security-theatre,
  title        = {Ceremony as security theatre — The ZK Field Manual},
  author       = {MarketComp},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {1.3},
  howpublished = {\url{https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/ceremony-as-security-theatre/}},
  note         = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}