89139 bc high non quantized credits to wormhole addresses permanently lock sub quantum value

Submitted on Aug 17th 2026 at 12:47:05 UTC by @Kangaroo59250 for Audit Comp | Quantus

• Report ID: #89139

• Report Type: Blockchain/DLT

• Report severity: High

• Target: https://github.com/immunefi-team/audit-comp-quantus-chain

• Impacts:

  • Permanent freezing of funds

Description

Summary

Quantus tracks native balances with 12 decimal places, but wormhole ZK-tree leaves commit amounts with only two decimal places:

committed_amount = floor(amount / 10^10)

The transfer-proof recorder accepts every nonzero credit, including amounts that are not multiples of the 0.01 QUAN leaf quantum. The full balance reaches the recipient, but the leaf hash commits only the truncated amount.

When the recipient is a Poseidon-derived wormhole address, the omitted remainder cannot be spent by signature and is not covered by any valid ZK leaf. It is therefore permanently unwithdrawable.

A sub-quantum credit such as 0.009 QUAN is especially severe: it is above the runtime existential deposit, so the transfer succeeds, but its leaf commits to an input amount of zero. The entire credit becomes unexitable.

Vulnerability Details

Native balance transfers emit events that are scanned by WormholeProofRecorderExtension. The extension passes each recorded credit to:

record_transfer_proof(asset_id, from, to, amount)

In pallets/wormhole/src/lib.rs:1341-1390, the recorder rejects only an exact zero:

if amount.is_zero() {
    return false;
}

All other native credits reach record_transfer, which stores the full-precision amount, advances the recipient’s transfer count, and inserts a ZK-tree leaf.

However, pallets/zk-tree/src/tree.rs:135-149 hashes the amount as:

let amount_quantized =
    u32::try_from(amount_u128 / AMOUNT_SCALE_DOWN_FACTOR)
        .unwrap_or(u32::MAX);

AMOUNT_SCALE_DOWN_FACTOR is 10^10, making one circuit quantum equal to 0.01 QUAN. Floor division silently removes any smaller remainder from the Merkle commitment.

The wormhole circuit uses the resulting quantized u32 as its private input_amount. For a credit of:

amount = n × 0.01 QUAN + remainder

only n × 0.01 QUAN is represented by the leaf hash. No valid membership witness can cover the remainder.

This is permanent when the recipient is a wormhole address. Such an address is derived from a Poseidon preimage rather than a Dilithium signing key, so the holder must use the ZK exit mechanism to recover its balance.

The relevant runtime units are:

1 QUAN              = 10^12 base units
Leaf quantum        = 10^10 base units = 0.01 QUAN
Existential deposit = 10^9 base units  = 0.001 QUAN

A fresh wormhole address can therefore receive a valid balance that quantizes to zero in the ZK tree.

Impact

For every non-aligned wormhole credit, the amount omitted from the commitment is:

locked_remainder = amount mod 10^10

Examples:

Credit	Leaf input	Result
0.009 QUAN	0	Entire 0.009 QUAN is locked
1.009 QUAN	1.00 QUAN	0.009 QUAN is absent from the commitment
10.005 QUAN	10.00 QUAN	0.005 QUAN is absent from the commitment
Exact multiple of 0.01 QUAN	Full aligned amount	No quantization remainder; the circuit’s volume-fee constraint still applies

Exact multiples do not suffer truncation, but they remain subject to the circuit’s fee constraint:

output × 10000 ≤ input × 9996

At the configured four-basis-point rate, a 0.01 QUAN input has a maximum output of zero, while a 0.02 QUAN input can output only 0.01 QUAN. Deposits below 0.02 QUAN are therefore fully unexitable, and a deposit of exactly 0.02 QUAN loses 50%.

This small-deposit behavior amplifies the impact but is separate from the quantization remainder that is the primary root cause of this finding.

The unintended loss per larger credit is less than 0.01 QUAN, but credits between the 0.001 QUAN existential deposit and 0.01 QUAN leaf quantum can lose 100% of their value.

The failure is silent:

• The transfer succeeds.

• The recipient’s balance increases by the full amount.

• A transfer event and ZK-tree leaf are created.

• No warning indicates that some or all of the value is unexitable.

Sub-quantum credits also insert a leaf whose hash commits to a zero amount, unnecessarily advancing the recipient’s transfer count and permanently growing the ZK tree.

Recommendation

Prevent unrepresentable value from reaching keyless wormhole addresses.

Explicit wormhole-deposit and protocol-payout paths should validate, before transferring, that:

amount >= minimum usable input
amount % AMOUNT_SCALE_DOWN_FACTOR == 0

Official wallet tooling should align wormhole deposits to the 0.01 QUAN quantum and leave any remainder in the sender’s signature-controlled account.

Ordinary accounts and wormhole addresses share the same AccountId type, so the generic recorder cannot reliably distinguish them. If arbitrary transfers to wormhole addresses must remain supported, the protocol should either:

• increase the circuit’s amount precision; or

• accumulate per-recipient remainders and create leaves only for complete quanta, with an explicit policy for terminal dust.

At minimum, a credit that quantizes to zero should not insert a worthless leaf, and the runtime should emit a dedicated warning event. This would prevent unnecessary state growth and make the loss visible, although it would not recover value already transferred.

References

• runtime/src/transaction_extensions.rs:309-398 — balance-event proof recording

• pallets/wormhole/src/lib.rs:1280-1330 — transfer count and leaf insertion

• pallets/wormhole/src/lib.rs:1341-1390 — nonzero credit acceptance

• pallets/zk-tree/src/tree.rs:135-149 — amount quantization

• wormhole/circuit/src/zk_merkle_proof.rs:246-255 — quantized private input

• wormhole/circuit/src/zk_merkle_proof.rs:491-499 — exit fee constraint

• runtime/src/lib.rs:97-102 — unit and existential deposit

• Commit: 3b243b870a5442a6e5f443056f67bbba87d472f5

Proof of Concept

Add the following test to pallets/wormhole/src/tests.rs:

#[test]
fn poc_fractional_deposits_are_permanently_locked() {
    use qp_wormhole::TransferProofRecorder;

    new_test_ext().execute_with(|| {
        let from = account_id(1);
        let to = account_id(9100);
        let fee_bps = VolumeFeeRateBps::get() as u128;
        let quantum =
            pallet_zk_tree::tree::AMOUNT_SCALE_DOWN_FACTOR;

        // Case A: 0.009 QUAN is above the runtime ED but below
        // the 0.01 QUAN leaf quantum.
        let dust: u128 = 9_000_000_000;

        assert!(
            <Wormhole as TransferProofRecorder<
                AccountId,
                u32,
                u128,
            >>::record_transfer_proof(
                None,
                from.clone(),
                to.clone(),
                dust,
            ),
            "the recorder accepts a sub-quantum credit"
        );

        let leaf =
            ZkTree::leaf(0).expect("the credit must insert a leaf");

        assert_eq!(
            leaf.amount,
            dust,
            "storage retains the full-precision amount"
        );

        let input_quanta_a = dust / quantum;
        assert_eq!(
            input_quanta_a,
            0,
            "the leaf hash commits to zero input quanta"
        );

        let max_output_a =
            input_quanta_a * (10_000 - fee_bps) / 10_000;

        assert_eq!(
            max_output_a,
            0,
            "the accepted credit has no exitable value"
        );

        assert_eq!(
            crate::TransferCount::<Test>::get(to),
            1,
            "the worthless leaf still advances the transfer count"
        );

        // Case B: exactly one quantum is aligned, but the fee
        // constraint still makes its maximum output zero.
        let input_quanta_b = quantum / quantum;
        let max_output_b =
            input_quanta_b * (10_000 - fee_bps) / 10_000;

        assert_eq!(
            max_output_b,
            0,
            "a one-quantum input cannot produce a nonzero output"
        );

        // Case C: the fractional part of 1.009 QUAN is omitted.
        let amount_c: u128 = UNIT + 9_000_000_000;
        let input_quanta_c = amount_c / quantum;

        assert_eq!(
            input_quanta_c,
            100,
            "the fractional part is truncated"
        );

        let locked_remainder =
            amount_c - input_quanta_c * quantum;

        assert_eq!(
            locked_remainder,
            9_000_000_000,
            "the 0.009 QUAN remainder is not committed"
        );
    });
}

Run:

cargo test -p pallet-wormhole --lib poc_fractional_deposits_are_permanently_locked

Verified on commit 3b243b870a5442a6e5f443056f67bbba87d472f5:

test tests::private_batch_proof_tests::poc_fractional_deposits_are_permanently_locked ... ok

test result: ok. 1 passed; 0 failed

The PoC demonstrates that the recorder accepts a sub-quantum amount, inserts a leaf, and advances the transfer count even though the committed input amount and maximum circuit output are both zero.