---
title: "Adopting a transcript that cannot serve your scheme"
description: "A large, reputable ceremony is adopted on the strength of its participant count, and only later does the team discover the transcript cannot back their proof…"
type: "failure-mode"
url: "https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/adopting-a-transcript-that-cannot-serve-your-scheme/"
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/adopting-a-transcript-that-cannot-serve-your-scheme.json"
---

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

# Adopting a transcript that cannot serve your scheme

A large, reputable ceremony is adopted on the strength of its participant count, and only later does the team discover the transcript cannot back their proof system at all — most commonly, a Groth16 project reaching for a pure powers-of-tau/KZG SRS that carries no alpha- or beta-shifted powers.

**Mitigation:** Check scheme compatibility before curve and before size. Run your toolchain's phase-2 initialisation against the candidate artefact as the very first step, not after the ceremony has been planned.