{
  "type": "failure-mode",
  "name": "Relying on a conjecture without knowing you are",
  "slug": "relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are",
  "section": {
    "id": "proof-systems",
    "number": "01",
    "title": "Choosing a proof system",
    "url": "https://zkpick.com/proof-systems/"
  },
  "url": "https://zkpick.com/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are/",
  "markdown": "https://zkpick.com/md/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are.md",
  "detail": "Aggressive hash-based parameters are adopted from a benchmark or a default configuration that quietly assumed a soundness conjecture, and nobody records which conjecture. Conjectures do fall: the up-to-capacity proximity-gap conjectures were disproved in late 2025, and although the counterexamples do not reach the small fields deployed systems use, the corrected conjecture is not free. A team that never wrote down what it was assuming cannot tell whether an event like that touches them.",
  "mitigation": "State explicitly whether your parameters are provable or conjectural, and set a review trigger tied to the relevant literature. Prefer provable-regime parameters where the performance cost is affordable.",
  "relatedOptions": [],
  "updated": "2026-09-12",
  "version": "1.3",
  "canonical": "https://zkpick.com/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are/",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "authors": [
    "MarketComp"
  ]
}