---
title: "Auditing the circuit but not the protocol"
description: "Every constraint is correct and the system is still exploitable, because the statement being proved is the wrong one — front-running, griefing, economic…"
type: "failure-mode"
url: "https://zkpick.com/audit/failure-modes/auditing-the-circuit-but-not-the-protocol/"
section: "03 Auditing a ZK protocol"
authors:
  - "MarketComp"
publisher: "MarketComp"
version: "1.3"
updated: "2026-09-12"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
json: "https://zkpick.com/data/audit/failure-modes/auditing-the-circuit-but-not-the-protocol.json"
---

*By MarketComp. Updated 2026-09-12. Version 1.3. CC BY 4.0.*

# Auditing the circuit but not the protocol

Every constraint is correct and the system is still exploitable, because the *statement* being proved is the wrong one — front-running, griefing, economic manipulation, or a privacy leak through timing, amounts or graph structure that the proof faithfully preserves.

**Mitigation:** Scope protocol-level review explicitly, including privacy leakage through metadata and side channels outside the proof, and review the specification's claims about what an adversary cannot learn.