An Ethereum working group comprising software wallet developers, cybersecurity firms, and the Ethereum Foundation's Trillion Dollar Security Initiative has introduced an open standard designed to eliminate blind signing across the network. The initiative aims to address a critical structural vulnerability in transaction approvals that has historically led to billions of dollars in losses for users and institutions, including major security breaches such as the Bybit hack. By establishing human-readable confirmations as the default standard, the group seeks to transform how users review and authorize actions on the blockchain.

According to the Ethereum Foundation, while phishing attacks or compromised infrastructure often launch security incidents, the final failure point in many major exploits is a user confirming a transaction they cannot properly understand. Approving a transaction serves as the fundamental safeguard for controlling digital assets on Ethereum, but blind approval renders this protection ineffective. The newly proposed framework operates under the principle of "What You See Is What You Sign," with the goal of securing trillions of dollars in value on the network.

Currently, transaction approvals rely on complex, machine-readable data formats that require significant technical expertise to decipher accurately. In high-risk scenarios, users are often forced to rely on separate secondary devices to verify details, particularly if the front-end application itself is suspected of being compromised. The new clear signing framework addresses this issue by establishing structured, clear, and human-readable transaction descriptions that crypto wallets can display consistently to end users across both existing and newly created decentralized applications.

The architecture relies on ERC-7730, a standardized format for transaction descriptors, combined with an open registry hosted by the Ethereum Foundation's One Trillion Dollar Security Initiative. Anyone can contribute transaction descriptions to the system, which are then subject to independent reviews and attestations to verify their accuracy. Wallets can independently choose which descriptor sources they trust to display to users. Because these descriptors are provided alongside transactions rather than embedded directly into blockchain code, the system can support legacy applications while retaining independent verification capabilities.

The ecosystem effort includes dedicated tooling and libraries in Rust and TypeScript, funded through the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative and hosted via clearsigning.org. The organization is urging wallet developers to integrate human-readable confirmations, application creators to provide accurate descriptions, and security auditors to participate in verifying descriptors. Originally initiated by hardware wallet maker Ledger, the multi-party collaboration features contributions from numerous industry players, including ZKnox, Sourcify, Cyfrin, Zama, WalletConnect, Fireblocks, Trezor, Keycard, MetaMask, and Argot.