The Ethereum Foundation rolls out the Clear Signing security feature, with Ledger adopting it first

According to CoinTelegraph’s May 13 report, the Ethereum Foundation announced on Tuesday that the Clear Signing (plain-text signing) security feature released by the Ethereum community has been officially integrated into crypto platforms including Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, Keycard, WalletConnect, Argot, and Fireblocks.

Ethereum Foundation statement and background on blind-signing attacks

In a Tuesday statement, the Ethereum Foundation said: “Approving transactions is supposed to be the last line of defense for controlling blockchain assets. But if you approve blindly, this line of defense fails.” The Foundation said that blind signing is a “structural flaw” that has resulted in losses of tens of billions of dollars, including a $1.4 billion loss suffered by Bybit in a hacker attack last year. According to CoinTelegraph, during the Bybit hack, attackers compromised a third-party service provider and tampered with transaction signatures to steal funds; the report also cited data saying that a North Korea state-backed hacking group has stolen more than $7 billion in assets since 2009, with a large portion coming from crypto protocols.

Clear Signing technical architecture and the ERC-7730 standard

Per the Ethereum Foundation statement (reported by CoinTelegraph), the Clear Signing feature is introduced through the Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security program and is initiated by Ledger via the open-source ERC-7730 token standard.

The Foundation said that the key components of Clear Signing include: “human-readable transaction descriptions,” a “neutral and mirrorable descriptor registry,” and a verification framework so auditors can confirm the accuracy of the descriptors above.

Trezor CTO explains the meaning of the feature and deployment plans

In an interview with CoinTelegraph with Trezor CTO Tomáš Sušánka, Sušánka said that because there is a lack of widely available security features that can distinguish malicious smart contracts from legitimate transactions, attackers have been able to keep exploiting this vulnerability, causing users to “sign these documents without knowing what they are signing, and lose all of their assets.”

Sušánka noted that Clear Signing “directly addresses this issue by making the transaction contents understandable before approval,” and called it “a key security advancement for our entire industry.” He said that Trezor plans to complete the deployment and implementation of this security feature by June 30, 2026.

According to CoinTelegraph, in addition to the aforementioned institutions, Sourcify, Zama, and ZKnox are also contributors to the Clear Signing feature.

FAQ

What is Clear Signing, and which technical standard supports it?

According to the Ethereum Foundation’s statement and CoinTelegraph’s report, Clear Signing is a security feature that replaces hard-to-identify hexadecimal data with human-readable transaction descriptions, ensuring users understand the details of a transaction before signing it; the feature is initiated by Ledger through the open-source ERC-7730 token standard and promoted under the Ethereum Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security program.

Which major crypto platforms have adopted or contributed to Clear Signing?

According to CoinTelegraph, the earliest platforms to adopt and contribute to Clear Signing include Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, Keycard, WalletConnect, Argot, Fireblocks, Sourcify, Zama, and ZKnox.

When does Trezor plan to complete the deployment of Clear Signing?

According to statements by Trezor CTO Tomáš Sušánka during his interview with CoinTelegraph, Trezor plans to complete the deployment and implementation of the Clear Signing security feature by June 30, 2026.