{
  "type": "glossary",
  "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/",
  "terms": [
    {
      "term": "Arithmetisation",
      "definition": "The translation of a computation into a system of polynomial constraints (R1CS, PLONKish, AIR) that a proof system can operate on.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-arithmetisation"
    },
    {
      "term": "Witness",
      "definition": "The private input plus all intermediate values that satisfy a circuit's constraints. Soundness means no witness exists for a false statement.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-witness"
    },
    {
      "term": "Underconstrained circuit",
      "definition": "A circuit admitting witnesses that do not correspond to a correct execution. The dominant real-world ZK bug class: the cryptography is sound, the statement being proved is simply the wrong one.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-underconstrained-circuit"
    },
    {
      "term": "SRS / CRS",
      "definition": "Structured (Common) Reference String — public parameters some proof systems require. Produced by a trusted setup; compromise of the setup randomness breaks soundness.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-srs-crs"
    },
    {
      "term": "Universal setup",
      "definition": "An SRS reusable across every circuit up to a size bound, so a new circuit does not require a new ceremony. Contrast with circuit-specific setup.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-universal-setup"
    },
    {
      "term": "Updatable setup",
      "definition": "An SRS any party may re-randomise after the fact; it stays secure as long as at least one contributor in its entire history was honest.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-updatable-setup"
    },
    {
      "term": "Toxic waste",
      "definition": "The secret randomness used to generate an SRS. If any single participant's contribution is destroyed, the setup is secure; if all are retained and combined, forged proofs become possible.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-toxic-waste"
    },
    {
      "term": "Powers of tau",
      "definition": "The circuit-independent first phase of a setup ceremony, producing a universal SRS of committed powers of a secret value. Public transcripts exist and are widely reused.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-powers-of-tau"
    },
    {
      "term": "Polynomial commitment",
      "definition": "A scheme to commit to a polynomial and later prove evaluations of it. The choice (KZG, FRI, IPA, hash-based) drives proof size, verifier cost, setup need and post-quantum posture more than the surrounding protocol does.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-polynomial-commitment"
    },
    {
      "term": "Fiat–Shamir",
      "definition": "The transform making an interactive protocol non-interactive by deriving the verifier's challenges from a hash of the transcript. Omitting values from that hash is the 'Frozen Heart' vulnerability class.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-fiat-shamir"
    },
    {
      "term": "Recursion / aggregation",
      "definition": "Verifying one proof inside another, to compress many proofs into one or to prove unbounded computation in bounded memory.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-recursion-aggregation"
    },
    {
      "term": "Folding scheme",
      "definition": "A technique that combines two instances of a relation into one without producing a full proof at each step, amortising the cost of proving repeated computation.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-folding-scheme"
    },
    {
      "term": "Lookup argument",
      "definition": "A protocol proving that values appear in a precomputed table, used to express operations that are expensive as raw arithmetic constraints.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-lookup-argument"
    },
    {
      "term": "zkVM",
      "definition": "A proof system for the execution trace of a general-purpose virtual machine, letting teams prove ordinary programs instead of hand-written circuits, at a cost in prover work.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-zkvm"
    },
    {
      "term": "Nullifier",
      "definition": "A deterministic, unlinkable value published to prevent double-spending or replay of a private action. Missing or malleable nullifiers are a recurring protocol-level bug.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-nullifier"
    },
    {
      "term": "Soundness error",
      "definition": "The probability a prover can convince a verifier of a false statement. Quoted in bits; conjectured and provable bounds can differ substantially for FRI-based systems.",
      "url": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/#term-soundness-error"
    }
  ],
  "canonical": "https://zkpick.com/glossary/",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "authors": [
    "MarketComp"
  ]
}