By the end of this lesson you’ll be able to tell apart the four kinds of signature that have emptied wallets since 2021, read a request on your device’s own screen before you approve it, and say which of them a revoke can undo and which it can’t.
Keys stolen against signatures given
Lesson 1 named signatures as the second route into your money. It’s the one a hardware wallet can’t close.
A thief who steals a phrase has to find it. A thief who collects signatures only has to build a website and wait for you to arrive, and your hardware wallet will sign for them as readily as for you, because it does what you confirm.
Your First Wallet, Set Up Safely, lesson 6, drew the first line: a transaction costs a fee and changes the chain; a signature costs nothing, leaves no record on the chain, and some can be used later.
Approval
A transaction that lets a contract spend your tokens
Permit
An approval granted by signing a message
Listing
A signed order, filled when a buyer appears
Delegation
Attaches contract code to your wallet
Four kinds of signature that have emptied wallets
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