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Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

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Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

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Excluded by your filters: Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

Published attempts to break a system, including those that found failures. Testing history does not show that open flaws are resolved.

• Zero-knowledge proofs of inference: Independent red-team
• Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Analysis · excluded by filters

Excluded by your filters

• Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting Readiness R1 is below the minimum of R2.

Open significant flaws

6 flaws in 2 mechanisms

• The proof covers a fixed-point approximation, not the floating-point model in Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

  Current ZK inference systems prove a quantised version of the network. zkLLM scales values by 2^16 and reports small perplexity changes. Attestable reports quantising matrix multiplications to 8-bit integers while proving other operations in floating point. A verifier therefore learns about the proof-friendly variant, and must separately accept that this variant is the declared model. Trail of Bits built a ResNet-18 backdoor that is dormant in the full-precision model and active after ezkl's quantisation; whether it persists through proving was left for further investigation. A verification system design calls floating-point emulation in ZKPs an open problem. ^{1 5 7 11}

  Open question · Significant · Open. On the record

• A proof speaks only for the computations that were proven in Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

  Attestable writes that "a proof of some computation is not a proof of all computation", and that a proof cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared. Proofs of inference do not by themselves show that no other workload ran on the same or other hardware. ¹²

  Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

  Related mechanism R1 Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: The record names proof-of-work accounting as the kind of compute accounting needed to show that proven inference was the only work done. A pointer, not evidence that this flaw is mitigated. In the proposal.

• Proofs do not bind computational effort (Hollow-LLM) in Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

  Researchers at the University of Southern California show that a proof of inference certifies that an output is consistent with committed weights under the declared architecture, but not how much computation produced it. In their Hollow-LLM attack, a provider keeps the declared architecture and parameter count but commits to "ghost weights". Some layers pass their inputs through unchanged, and wide layers carry the signal in a small subspace, so a much smaller inner model does the real work. The ghost weights satisfy the verification circuit and yield valid proofs.

  The authors ran the attack with the proof procedure of zkGPT, a separate ZK inference system, on a 6-layer, 512-dimensional transformer declared as up to 12 layers and 1,024 dimensions. Outputs were identical to the inner model's, and serving cost stayed at the inner model's level. An honest model of the declared size cost 2.4 times as much to prefill and 3.1 times as much to decode. Proving cost still grew with the declared architecture.

  The authors note that results may be served before any proof, with the provider building the witness only when a call is selected for audit. They describe their constructions as "compatible with state-of-the-art zkLLM pipelines", and state that the attack does not imply a flaw in the proof system itself. They propose challenge-based audits and ablation tests, which raise the cost of cheating but give no guarantee. ¹⁰

  Demonstrated attack · Significant · Open. On the record

• Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

  Proof-of-work accounting bounds unmonitored compute only relative to an estimate of what the actor has. Attestable states that the verifier "needs a credible estimate of the compute available" to the actor, and that a proof "cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared". ¹²

  Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

  Related mechanism R1 Chip registries and manufacturing records: A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs. A pointer, not evidence that this flaw is mitigated. Add

  Related mechanism R1 Remote detection of data centres: Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover. A pointer, not evidence that this flaw is mitigated. Add

• Security rests on new hardness assumptions in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

  Komargodski and Weinstein base security on hardness assumptions about batches of low-rank random linear equations, and list PoUW "from more standard or well-studied assumptions" as an open problem. Pearl's floating-point variant introduces a further "quantized-subspace hardness" assumption. ^{14 15}

  Open question · Significant · Open. On the record

• Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

  Pearl's specification lists known mining speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. A policy check caps the summands a miner may skip at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. For capacity bounding, any gap between work proven and work possible leaves spare capacity. ¹⁵

  Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

Open minor flaws

1 mechanism with minor findings

• The model architecture is disclosed in Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

  ZKML "requires that the model architecture (but not weights) is revealed", and zkLLM assumes a publicly known model structure. Architecture can be commercially sensitive. ^{1 3}

  Theoretical argument · Minor · Open. On the record

Not yet demonstrated

R1 Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

Mechanisms on the map that are not in the proposal. Pointers, not recommendations. ?

• R1 Chip registries and manufacturing records Add

  Excluded by filters: readiness R1

  • Bears on the open significant flaw “Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains” in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting. A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs.
• R1 Remote detection of data centres Add

  Excluded by filters: readiness R1

  • Bears on the open significant flaw “Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains” in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting. Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover.

Blockers

7 blockers recorded

• Zero-knowledge proofs of inference
  • Proving takes about 13 minutes (803 seconds) per 2,048-token forward pass of a 13B model on one A100, and a verification system design calls the overhead heavy. Performance & compatibility ^{1 11}
  • ZKML and zkLLM prove fixed-point arithmetic, and floating-point emulation in ZKPs is described as an open problem. Performance & compatibility ^{1 3 11}
  • zkLLM's code is unaudited, interactive and archived; the one audited ZK inference library, ezkl, had high-severity circuit soundness bugs before its fixes. Adversarial validation ^{2 7}
  • Showing that proven inference was the only work done needs a compute-accounting mechanism such as proof-of-work accounting, which is only proposed. Coverage & hidden compute. Waits on Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting ¹²
• Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting
  • Bounding spare capacity needs a credible estimate of the compute available to the actor, including third-party access. Capacity bounds ¹²
  • Proofs of work cannot find facilities that were never declared. Coverage & hidden compute ¹²
  • As of September 2026 no implementation, demonstration or independent evaluation of proofs of work for capacity bounding has been published. Adversarial validation

From the family or selected implementation's record. ?

Model weights

Depends on the design for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

Hidden by Zero-knowledge proofs of inference.

Inputs and outputs

Shown by Zero-knowledge proofs of inference.

Depends on the design for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

Training data

Not involved: Zero-knowledge proofs of inference and Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

Zero-knowledge proofs of inference

• R1 Attestable zero-knowledge inference prover Product, Attestable
• R2 EZKL Product, Zkonduit
• R1 Low-trust AI compute verification system overview Proposed architecture, Machine Intelligence Research Institute
• R2 zkLLM Research prototype, University of Waterloo

Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

• R3 Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain Open-source project, Pearl Research Labs

1. zkLLM: Zero Knowledge Proofs for Large Language Models, H. Sun et al. (2024). Original
2. zkllm-ccs2024: code for zkLLM: Zero Knowledge Proofs for Large Language Models, H. Sun (2024). Original
3. ZKML: An Optimizing System for ML Inference in Zero-Knowledge Proofs, B.-J. Chen et al. (2024). Original
4. NanoZK: Privacy-Preserving Verifiable Inference for Large Language Models via Layerwise Zero-Knowledge Proofs, Z. Wang (2026). Original
5. Proving LLMs at Scale, Attestable (2026). Original
6. Verifiable evaluations of machine learning models using zkSNARKs, T. South et al. (2024). Original
7. Zkonduit EZKL Security Assessment, F. Casal et al. (2025). Original
8. DeepProve-1: The First zkML System to Prove a Full LLM Inference, Lagrange Labs (2025). Original
9. Lagrange-Labs/deep-prove (GitHub repository), Lagrange Labs (2026). Original
10. Hollow-LLM Attack: Computationally Trivial Weights in Zero-Knowledge Verification of LLM Inference, C. Gong et al. (2026). Original
11. A System Overview for Near-Term, Low-Trust AI Compute Verification, N. Cankaya (2026). Original
12. Pacing AI Requires Proof, Attestable (2026). Original
13. Mechanisms to Verify International Agreements About AI Development, A. Scher & L. Thiergart (2025). Original
14. Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication, I. Komargodski & O. Weinstein (2025). Original
15. Pearl Floating Point Scheme Specification, Pearl Research Team (2026). Original
16. pearl: Monorepo for the Pearl network, Pearl Research Labs (2026). Original