01 — Proof system · Failure mode

Relying on a conjecture without knowing you are

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.

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

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.

Cite this page

MarketComp (2026). Relying on a conjecture without knowing you are. The ZK Field Manual (Version 1.3). MarketComp. https://zkpick.com/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are/

@misc{zkfieldmanual-relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-,
  title        = {Relying on a conjecture without knowing you are — The ZK Field Manual},
  author       = {MarketComp},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {1.3},
  howpublished = {\url{https://zkpick.com/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are/}},
  note         = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}