I have seen that Filecoin performed a public set-up ceremony for their zkSNARK system. Because Filecoin uses the Groth16 prover (which has a circuit-specific set-up), the output of this ceremony was public parameters that anyone can use to prove statements involving one of six Filecoin-defined circuits.
It would be nice if a large and reputable organisation would perform a trusted set-up for universal proving systems, like PLONK or Marlin. Presumably, this organisation would use its resources to attract participation from a wide set of unrelated members of the public, and this would remove the need for smaller projects to redo this work.
My question: are there any universal zkSNARK set-ups that have been completed and released their proving parameters to the public?
If not, why not?
