03 — Auditing · Failure mode

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.

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

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.

Cite this page

MarketComp (2026). Auditing the circuit but not the protocol. The ZK Field Manual (Version 1.3). MarketComp. https://zkpick.com/audit/failure-modes/auditing-the-circuit-but-not-the-protocol/

@misc{zkfieldmanual-auditing-the-circuit-but-not-the-protoco,
  title        = {Auditing the circuit but not the protocol — The ZK Field Manual},
  author       = {MarketComp},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {1.3},
  howpublished = {\url{https://zkpick.com/audit/failure-modes/auditing-the-circuit-but-not-the-protocol/}},
  note         = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}