---
title: "Relying on a conjecture without knowing you are"
description: "Aggressive hash-based parameters are adopted from a benchmark or a default configuration that quietly assumed a soundness conjecture, and nobody records…"
type: "failure-mode"
url: "https://zkpick.com/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are/"
section: "01 Choosing a proof system"
authors:
  - "MarketComp"
publisher: "MarketComp"
version: "1.3"
updated: "2026-09-12"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
json: "https://zkpick.com/data/proof-systems/failure-modes/relying-on-a-conjecture-without-knowing-you-are.json"
---

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

# 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.

**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.