Key Highlights
- The Ethereum Foundation has launched Clear Signing to replace risky blind signing practices.
- Wallet providers, including Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, and WalletConnect, are supporting the initiative.
- ERC-7730 and ERC-8176 standards enable human-readable transaction previews and verification.
The Ethereum Foundation today announced the rollout of Clear Signing, a security and user experience upgrade designed to substitute the practice of blind signing with human-readable transaction previews as the new standard in the Ethereum ecosystem.
According to the official announcement, the initiative comes as a collaborative effort of wallets and hardware manufacturers such as Ledger, Trezor, Knox, MetaMask, and WalletConnect; security firms such as Cyfrin; infrastructure providers like Fireblocks and Zama; tooling projects such as Sourcify and Argo; and individual contributors.
What is blind signing?
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.
Clear signing addresses this vulnerability by permitting wallets and hardware devices to display transactions in plain, understandable language before users confirm them. It indicates a step forward towards “what you see is what you sign,” the default experience. Users won’t trust opaque interfaces or depend only on simulation tools.
Technical components of the rollout
The technical component of the rollout includes two aspects, ERC-7730 and ERC-8176.
- ERC-7730: It is an open standard defining a JSON format for structured human-readable descriptions of smart contract calls and typed messages. By substituting cryptic data with transparent, structured information, it improves user experience and security, permitting users to verify transaction intent directly on their devices.
- ERC-8176: It is an attestation framework permitting auditors and users to verify the integrity of transaction descriptors.
Trezor CTO welcomes the move
Tomáš Sušánka, CTO of Trezor, commented on the rollout, stating, “We welcome the Ethereum Foundation’s Clear Signing standard as a critical security advancement for our entire industry. This addresses a fundamental vulnerability that has plagued cryptocurrency users for years: blind signing. When users can’t understand what they’re signing, security becomes much more difficult.” This standard changes that, and every wallet provider should embrace it. Trezor is committed to implementing this across our products over the coming months.”
He added, “What makes ERC-7730 particularly significant is that it’s an open standard – not proprietary technology. True security requires transparency and community verification. We’ve built Trezor on this principle for over a decade.”
Sušánka also gave a tentative timeline for clear signing transaction decoding and converting complex hex data into a readable format to begin at the beginning of Q2 2026 and towards the end of Q2 2026 for full human-readable signing implementation.
Audit subsidy program
In a separate development, the Ethereum Foundation recently launched a $1 million audit subsidy program to help developers working on the Ethereum platform.
The initiative forms part of the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative that is being spearheaded by the Ethereum Foundation. The program is being implemented jointly between the Ethereum Foundation, Areta, Nethermind, and Chainlink Labs. The purpose of the initiative is to bring down the steep costs associated with security audits and make professional reviews affordable for more developers.
Reducing the risk of attacks
As Ethereum gains more institutional users, the importance of minimizing vulnerabilities by enhancing user experience and security protocols becomes greater. Clear signing can help reduce the threat of such vulnerabilities to a great extent.
Clear Signing being activated now will pave the way for the implementation of safety measures for wallets and dApps, which could help prevent billions’ worth of financial loss in the future.
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