Ethereum Launches Clear Signing So Users Can Finally Read What They Approve

The Ethereum Foundation has formally launched Clear Signing, an open standard designed to end one of the most persistent security failures in crypto: users approving transactions they cannot read or understand.

What Clear Signing Actually Does

The Ethereum Foundation formally launched Clear Signing to replace the unreadable hex strings that most wallet users still approve when signing on-chain transactions. In practice, this means that instead of seeing a wall of cryptographic data, a user approving a swap would see something like "Swap 100 USDC for 0.05 ETH on Uniswap" instead of opaque hexadecimal data.

The initiative bundles three components: ERC-7730, a JSON descriptor format that lets contracts describe their functions in plain language; a neutral, mirrorable registry of those descriptors; and ERC-8176, an attestation framework that lets auditors cryptographically vouch for the accuracy of those descriptors.

Ledger originated clear signing as an internal security project in 2021, formalized it as ERC-7730 in 2024, and earlier this year transferred governance to the Foundation to make the standard credibly neutral.The Foundation's Trillion Dollar Security Initiative is committed to hosting this infrastructure and supporting its development, with adoption encouraged through clearsigning.org.

Why Blind Signing Has Been So Costly

Blind signing is a process where users approve opaque hexadecimal data without verifying its full details, like the recipient or exact amount. The process is responsible for billions of dollars in losses because of phishing attacks, malicious dApps, and approval exploits.The Lazarus Group hackers notably stole $1.4 billion from Bybit last year by tricking the exchange into blind signing a malicious transaction.

Trezor CTO Tomáš Sušánka noted that attackers have been exploiting this relentlessly due to there not being a widely accessible security feature capable of distinguishing malicious smart contracts from legitimate transactions, leading users to "unknowingly sign them, and lose everything." He added that the Clear Signing feature "directly addresses this by making transactions human-readable before approval."Sušánka said Trezor seeks to implement the security feature before June 30.

The contributor list is broad. Contributors span hardware (Ledger, Trezor, ZKnox), software wallets (MetaMask, WalletConnect), security (Cyfrin), infrastructure (Fireblocks, Zama), and tooling (Sourcify, Argot).The work also ties into the Foundation's Trillion Dollar Security initiative, a broader push to harden Ethereum infrastructure as on-chain institutional value climbs.

The Ethereum Foundation confirmed the work is ongoing and not a one-time release. Contributors will continue expanding coverage, refining tooling, and pushing for wider adoption. As more wallets and protocols integrate the standard, blind signing risks are expected to decrease steadily across the network.

Sources:
Ethereum Foundation Blog: Clear Signing Announcement
The Defiant: Ethereum Foundation Launches Clear Signing Standard
CoinDesk: Ethereum Foundation Unveils New Clear Signing Standard