04 — Trusted setup · Failure mode

Citing a ceremony without naming the branch and index

Long-running ceremonies can fork: a contribution chain splits and only one branch is continued, so "we used the public powers of tau" does not identify which parameters were adopted. Artefacts derived from a discontinued branch may not be compatible with those from the live one, and the claim cannot be independently checked.

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

Mitigation

Record the exact ceremony, branch, contribution index, file and hash you adopted, publish them, and verify that specific chain yourself rather than relying on the ceremony's overall reputation.

Cite this page

MarketComp (2026). Citing a ceremony without naming the branch and index. The ZK Field Manual (Version 1.3). MarketComp. https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/citing-a-ceremony-without-naming-the-branch-and-index/

@misc{zkfieldmanual-citing-a-ceremony-without-naming-the-bra,
  title        = {Citing a ceremony without naming the branch and index — The ZK Field Manual},
  author       = {MarketComp},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {1.3},
  howpublished = {\url{https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/citing-a-ceremony-without-naming-the-branch-and-index/}},
  note         = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}