Clear signing is a way of presenting a transaction or message in a human-readable format before a user authorizes it. Instead of asking a user to approve a long hex string or an opaque “Contract Interaction,” the wallet shows what the action actually does, such as the asset, the amount, the destination, the contract being called, and sometimes the exact method being executed.
Blind signing is the opposite. A wallet cannot decode the payload, so the user signs anyway. That creates a security gap because the signature is still valid, even if the user did not understand what was authorized.
The idea is simple: the wallet should tell the truth about what is being authorized, not just show raw bytes.
A good clear signing flow answers the practical questions that stop scams:
This matters because many wallet drains do not start with a direct transfer. They start with a signature that grants permissions, or a transaction that looks harmless in a dapp UI, but actually approves a spender, changes a delegate, or routes funds through a contract the user did not intend to trust.
Clear signing reduces this risk by shifting decision-making from “trust the website” to “verify the wallet display.” Wallet safety improves when the wallet becomes the source of truth for what will happen.
Clear signing usually depends on one of two decoding problems being solved. Either the wallet can understand a message signature, or it can understand an on-chain transaction call.
Many phishing attacks rely on “Sign message” prompts that show little or nothing. One industry move away from that is typed structured data signing. The EIP-712 specification defines a way to hash and sign typed structured data, so wallets can display fields such as domain, spender, value, nonce, and deadline in a readable way.
When dapps use typed data correctly, the wallet can show the exact content that will be signed. That makes it harder to hide the real authorization inside an unreadable blob.
On-chain transactions are often contract calls, not simple transfers. A contract call includes calldata that encodes a function selector and parameters. Clear signing requires decoding that calldata into a meaningful sentence.
In practice, decoding depends on contract interfaces, known method selectors, token metadata, and sometimes a registry of safe parsers. If the wallet recognizes the contract and the function, it can render the action as “Swap,” “Approve,” “Stake,” or “Bridge,” and display the important parameters.
A key part of safety is context. Typed data includes a domain separator and usually includes chain identifiers. That reduces replay risk, where a signature intended for one context is reused in another. Clear signing is stronger when the wallet shows chain, contract identity, and the scope of the permission in one place.
Clear signing is valuable anywhere the user is not only sending funds, but granting powers. The highest-impact cases include:
In all of these, the user’s intent is not “send money.” It is “give a protocol controlled access under specific conditions.” Clear signing is about making those conditions visible.
Clear signing reduces a class of failures, but it does not eliminate risk.
First, a wallet can only display what it can decode. New contracts, custom methods, or intentionally obfuscated calls can still force blind signing. Second, a decoded transaction can still be risky if the contract itself is malicious or compromised. A perfectly readable “Approve USDT spender X for unlimited amount” is still dangerous if spender X is a scam contract.
Third, the display can only summarize. Complex multicall flows can include many side effects. A wallet can highlight the primary effects, but subtle ones can remain hard to communicate.
The safest way to think about clear signing is as a strong safety layer, not a substitute for choosing reputable applications and practicing basic wallet hygiene.
Clear signing becomes useful when it is treated like a checklist, not a decoration.
These habits work because most scams depend on speed and ambiguity. Clear signing removes ambiguity, and a slow review removes speed.
Clear signing turns “trust the website” into “verify the wallet.” By making transactions and signatures readable, it reduces blind-signing scams and makes permissions easier to spot before funds move.
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