[ Thread 03 · read-only ]

“Approvals: the quiet risk behind one-click DeFi”

by allowance_audit 2026-04-12 31 replies 3360 views

DeFi Smart contracts Permissions

Original post 2026-04-12

I keep seeing posts where someone connected to a dApp, signed a few transactions and later realised the contract had broad permissions on their tokens. I want to understand the approval flow well enough that I never get caught by it myself.

Section 1

What an approval really is

An ERC-20 approval grants a smart contract permission to move tokens from your address up to a specified allowance.
Many dApps request an effectively unlimited allowance to avoid asking for approval again. Convenient for the app, riskier for the user.
An approval is a separate on-chain transaction from the actual swap, deposit or trade. It can be reviewed and revoked.

Section 2

Reading an approval prompt

Identify the spender address. Is it the contract you expect? Verify on a public explorer.
Check the token contract. Two tokens can share a name but have different contracts.
Check the allowance. Unlimited is the default for many UIs. A bounded allowance is usually safer.

Section 3

Habits that age well

Periodically review active allowances on a reputable allowance explorer for your address.
Revoke allowances you no longer use, especially for contracts you only interacted with once.
Treat every signature request as an answerable question: what am I approving, to whom and for how much?

What an approval really is

Reading an approval prompt

Habits that age well

Other threads

“I sent to the right address, but maybe the wrong network”

“Pending transaction: when to wait and when to investigate”

“Seed phrase is not support information”