04 — Trusted setup · Failure mode

Toxic waste that is never actually destroyed

Contributions are generated on a laptop that is backed up, on a cloud VM whose memory is snapshotted, or in a process whose secret is swapped to disk. The participant sincerely believes the secret is gone.

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

Mitigation

Provide tooling and written procedure: ephemeral or air-gapped machines, no swap, no backups, secure erase or destruction of the medium. Have participants attest to what they actually did, not to what was recommended.

Cite this page

MarketComp (2026). Toxic waste that is never actually destroyed. The ZK Field Manual (Version 1.3). MarketComp. https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/toxic-waste-that-is-never-actually-destroyed/

@misc{zkfieldmanual-toxic-waste-that-is-never-actually-destr,
  title        = {Toxic waste that is never actually destroyed — The ZK Field Manual},
  author       = {MarketComp},
  year         = {2026},
  version      = {1.3},
  howpublished = {\url{https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/toxic-waste-that-is-never-actually-destroyed/}},
  note         = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}