What Are You Signing? Understanding Wallet Requests

Two Different Things Happen When You Use Your Wallet

When people think about crypto wallet security, most picture someone stealing a seed phrase. In reality, a large share of losses today do not require that at all. They happen because the owner approved something themselves, through a wallet prompt they did not fully understand.

To make sense of that risk, it helps to know that your wallet asks you to do one of two very different things: sign a transaction, or sign a message.

A transaction changes something on the blockchain right away. Minting an NFT, sending tokens, or listing an item for sale on some platforms are all transactions. They cost gas, they show up on a block explorer, and their effect is visible immediately.

A signature is different. It does not touch the blockchain by itself. It is a piece of cryptographic proof that says “I agree to this,” which an app can later use to act on your behalf, sometimes without paying gas at all. Many modern NFT marketplaces rely on signatures for exactly this reason: listing an item for sale, accepting an offer, or setting up a gasless mint can all be done with a signature instead of a full transaction.

Why Signatures Exist: EIP-712 and Permit

Early wallet signatures were just blocks of raw hexadecimal data, unreadable to anyone. A standard called EIP-712 changed that by letting apps show signature requests in a structured, human-readable format, listing the specific values you are agreeing to instead of a wall of code. It is a real improvement, and it is why your wallet can now show something like “List NFT #4821 for 0.5 ETH” instead of gibberish.

A related standard, often called Permit, lets you approve a token spending limit through a signature instead of an on-chain transaction. This is what makes some marketplace purchases and gasless actions possible without a separate approval step. Used as intended, it is genuinely convenient.

The catch is that convenience cuts both ways. Because a signature does not appear as a pending transaction with a visible gas cost, it is easy to click through one without pausing the way you might before sending funds directly.

How Signature Scams Work

Scammers have built fake sites and pop-ups that copy the look of well-known marketplaces almost exactly, including their EIP-712 signature prompts. The victim sees a request that looks like an ordinary listing or claim, approves it, and in doing so hands over a valid, usable authorization, without ever revealing a seed phrase or password.

Some of these requests grant a spending allowance over a specific token or NFT. Others go further and reassign control of a wallet-connected contract, which can move far more value than a single item. Security researchers who track these incidents, including the firm Scam Sniffer, have estimated that wallet drainers used exactly this method to take several hundred million dollars from users in 2024 alone, with a smaller but still significant amount lost in 2025 as wallets added better warnings.

What makes this category of scam effective is that it does not rely on tricking someone into revealing a secret. It relies on the victim approving something themselves, one click at a time.

Warning Signs Worth Slowing Down For

• A signature request that appears immediately after connecting to an unfamiliar site or clicking a link from social media or a direct message.
• A prompt that does not clearly show what you are approving, or shows values that do not match what you expected to do.
• Any request framed as urgent, such as a limited time claim, airdrop, or “verify your wallet” popup.
• A domain name that is close to, but not exactly, a marketplace or tool you already trust.
• A wallet that only shows raw data instead of a readable summary of the request, sometimes called blind signing.

How to Protect Yourself

Treat every signature request with the same caution as a transaction, since some can move funds just as effectively. Read what the prompt actually says before approving, and if your wallet cannot show a readable summary of the request, that alone is a reason to stop and check.

Use a wallet or browser extension that offers transaction and signature simulation, which previews the likely outcome of a request before you approve it. Several popular wallets added this feature specifically in response to drainer scams, and it catches a meaningful share of malicious requests before they succeed.

Only connect your wallet to sites you meant to visit, and double check the URL rather than trusting a link from a message or comment. It also helps to review and revoke old token approvals periodically using a dedicated revocation tool, so a permission you granted months ago cannot be exploited later.

None of this requires giving up on signatures altogether. They are a normal, useful part of how modern NFT platforms work. The goal is simply to know the difference between a routine request and one asking for more than it should.

Getting Started the Safer Way

If you are new to minting, sticking with a small number of wallets and platforms you understand well is a reasonable way to limit exposure while you get comfortable reading these prompts. Simple NFT Creator is built for exactly this kind of straightforward minting, connecting to your own wallet so you stay in control of every approval along the way. Available on the App Store and Google Play.