---
title: "Ceremony as security theatre"
description: "The ceremony is run and marketed as proof of trustworthiness while the real risks — an underconstrained circuit, an unaudited verifier, a privileged upgrade…"
type: "failure-mode"
url: "https://zkpick.com/ceremony/failure-modes/ceremony-as-security-theatre/"
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/ceremony-as-security-theatre.json"
---

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

# Ceremony as security theatre

The ceremony is run and marketed as proof of trustworthiness while the real risks — an underconstrained circuit, an unaudited verifier, a privileged upgrade key — go unaddressed. Attention is spent where it buys the least security.

**Mitigation:** Rank the ceremony against the other risks in the system honestly. For most deployments the circuit and the verifier are far likelier failure points than the setup, and should receive proportionally more budget.