---
title: "Forgetting that a universal SRS is updatable by you"
description: "A public universal SRS is adopted as a fixed artefact, when its defining property is that anyone may re-randomise it."
type: "failure-mode"
url: "https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/forgetting-that-a-universal-srs-is-updatable-by-you/"
section: "04 Running or reusing a trusted setup"
authors:
  - "MarketComp"
publisher: "MarketComp"
version: "1.3"
updated: "2026-09-12"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
json: "https://zkpick.com/data/ceremony/failure-modes/forgetting-that-a-universal-srs-is-updatable-by-you.json"
---

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

# Forgetting that a universal SRS is updatable by you

A public universal SRS is adopted as a fixed artefact, when its defining property is that anyone may re-randomise it. A team that contributes nothing is trusting that at least one of the *existing* participants was honest; a team that adds one contribution of its own puts itself inside the 1-of-N set, which is cheap and materially strengthens the claim it can make to its users.

**Mitigation:** Consider adding your own contribution on top of the adopted SRS. Weigh it against the cost: an updated SRS is no longer byte-identical to the widely mirrored artefact, so you take on publishing and verification duties that reuse would otherwise have avoided.