fAmulet: Finding Finalization Failure Bugs in Polygon zkRollup
Zihao Li, Xinghao Peng, Zheyuan He, Xiapu Luo, Ting Chen
Abstract
Zero-knowledge layer 2 protocols emerge as a compelling approach to overcoming blockchain scalability issues by processing transactions through the transaction finalization process. During this process, transactions are efficiently processed off the main chain. Besides, both the transaction data and the zero-knowledge proofs of transaction executions are reserved on the main chain, ensuring the availability of transaction data as well as the correctness and verifiability of transaction executions. Hence, any bugs that cause the transaction finalization failure are crucial, as they impair the usability of these protocols and the scalability of blockchains. In this work, we conduct the first systematic study on finalization failure bugs in zero-knowledge layer 2 protocols, and define two kinds of such bugs. Besides, we design fAmulet, the first tool to detect finalization failure bugs in Polygon zkRollup, a prominent zero-knowledge layer 2 protocol, by leveraging fuzzing testing. To trigger finalization failure bugs effectively, we introduce a finalization behavior model to guide our transaction fuzzer to generate and mutate transactions for inducing diverse behaviors across each component (e.g., Sequencer) in the finalization process. Moreover, we define bug oracles according to the distinct bug definitions to accurately detect bugs. Through our evaluation, fAmulet can uncover twelve zero-day finalization failure bugs in Polygon zkRollup, and cover at least 20.8% more branches than baselines. Furthermore, we employ fAmulet to uncover zero-day bugs and reconfirm known bugs in Scroll zkRollup and Optimism Rollup, highlighting the generality of fAmulet to be extended to other layer 2 protocols. At the time of writing, all our uncovered zero-day bugs have been confirmed and fixed by the corresponding official teams.
Ask about this paper
Your agent reads all of it.
Lune indexed this paper to the last equation, along with the top-tier papers that cite it. Ask a question and the answer quotes them.
Your agent calls
Luneget_paper_fulltext
Free to start. No credit card required.
Terminal
Install the CLIlune papers fulltext 3227a099-d3db-47d0-86d8-e9d1cefb7c89Cited by top-tier papers3
- Auspex: Unveiling Inconsistency Bugs of Transaction Fee Mechanism in BlockchainZheyuan He, Zihao Li, Jiahao Luo, Feng Luo et al.USENIX Security 2025
- Is My RPC Response Reliable? Detecting RPC Bugs in Blockchain Client under ContextZhijie Zhong, Yuhong Nan, Mingxi Ye, Qing Xue et al.ICSE 2026
- Automated Soundness and Completeness Vetting of Polygon zkEVMXinghao Peng, Zhiyuan Sun, Kunsong Zhao, Zuchao Ma et al.USENIX Security 2025
Builds on25
- Making Smart Contracts SmarterLoi Luu, Duc-Hiep Chu, Hrishi Olickel, Prateek Saxena et al.CCS 2016 · 2,306 citations
- Securify: Practical Security Analysis of Smart ContractsPetar Tsankov, Andrei Marian Dan, Dana Drachsler-Cohen, Arthur Gervais et al.CCS 2018 · 1,108 citations
- Poseidon: A New Hash Function for Zero-Knowledge Proof SystemsLorenzo Grassi, Dmitry Khovratovich, Christian Rechberger, Arnab Roy et al.USENIX Security 2021 · 410 citations
- Arbitrum: Scalable, private smart contractsHarry A. Kalodner, Steven Goldfeder, Xiaoqi Chen, S. Matthew Weinberg et al.USENIX Security 2018 · 353 citations
- Anonymous Multi-Hop Locks for Blockchain Scalability and InteroperabilityGiulio Malavolta, Pedro Moreno-Sanchez, Clara Schneidewind, Aniket Kate et al.NDSS 2019 · 305 citations
Related papers
- Fuzzing Processing Pipelines for Zero-Knowledge CircuitsChristoph Hochrainer, Anastasia Isychev, Valentin Wüstholz, Maria ChristakisCCS 2025 · 1 citation
- A Secure Sequencer and Data Availability Committee for RollupsMargarita Capretto, Martín Ceresa, Antonio Fernández Anta, Pedro Moreno-Sanchez et al.CCS 2025
- Specular: Towards Secure, Trust-minimized Optimistic Blockchain ExecutionZhe Ye, Ujval Misra, Jiajun Cheng, Wenyang Zhou et al.S&P 2024 · 9 citations
- Finding Consensus Bugs in Ethereum via Multi-transaction Differential FuzzingYoungseok Yang, Taesoo Kim, Byung-Gon ChunOSDI 2021 · 57 citations
- Arguzz: Testing zkVMs for Soundness and Completeness BugsChristoph Hochrainer, Valentin Wüstholz, Maria ChristakisUSENIX Security 2026 · 2 citations
