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To revoke a token approval, open a trusted approval checker, select the allowance you no longer trust, and confirm a revocation transaction on the same blockchain. Revoking changes the smart-contract allowance so that spender cannot use it in the future; it does not disconnect your wallet, erase a transaction, or return cryptocurrency that has already been transferred. Review every network separately, because an approval on Ethereum does not cover Polygon, BNB Chain, or another network.
What a token approval actually permits
A token approval is a smart-contract permission. When you approve a decentralized application (dapp), you authorize a particular spender contract to move a specified token from your wallet up to an allowance. Swapping, depositing into a lending market, adding liquidity, and listing an NFT can all involve approvals.
The approval is separate from connecting your wallet. A connection lets a dapp see a public address and request actions. An allowance is the on-chain permission that a token contract will honor when the approved spender calls it. You can disconnect a site and still leave its allowance active.
Why old allowances matter
An approval can remain after the transaction that needed it has finished. If the dapp, its spender contract, or a malicious contract is later compromised, the allowance may still be usable until it expires, is consumed, reduced, or revoked. “Unlimited” approval is especially broad: it can authorize spending far more than the amount used in one swap or deposit.
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Token names shown in a wallet are not proof that a request is harmless. Check the contract address, spender, amount, network, and any deadline displayed by the wallet before signing.
Revoking versus disconnecting your wallet
Disconnecting removes or limits the dapp’s active wallet connection in your wallet interface. Revocation changes the token allowance stored by the token contract. The two actions solve different problems:
- Disconnect: stops the site from using the current connection to request new wallet actions until you connect again.
- Revoke: changes the on-chain allowance so the spender cannot use that permission in the future.
Disconnect first if a site is open and suspicious, but do not treat that as proof that allowances are safe. An existing approval can remain even when the site no longer appears in your connected-sites list.
What revocation can—and cannot—do
What it prevents
A successful revocation sets the selected allowance to zero, or otherwise removes the selected permission according to the token contract’s revocation method. The named spender then cannot use that allowance for a later transfer. MetaMask describes this outcome as a dapp no longer being able to access the wallet’s contents and move them around through that approval.
What it does not undo
Revocation is preventive. It cannot reverse a transfer that a spender already executed, restore a drained balance, or cancel a confirmed blockchain transaction. If an attacker has already moved assets, the revocation protects only what remains and only for the allowance you changed.
Every revocation is an on-chain transaction. You normally pay network gas for each transaction, and the amount varies with the chain and its current congestion. A confirmed revocation is not complete merely because the wallet window closed; verify the updated allowance after the transaction is mined.
Safe step-by-step revocation workflow
1. Begin at an official, bookmarked domain
Type the address of Revoke.cash yourself from a bookmark, or use the approval-checker page on the relevant chain’s official block explorer. Do not use a “wallet support” or “security” link sent by a stranger, a pop-up, or an unsolicited direct message. Phishing pages can imitate an approval checker while asking for a dangerous signature.
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Enter the public wallet address you want to inspect and choose the network. Revoke.cash supports searching by wallet address and filtering results by network, token, spender, and recency. A chain explorer’s checker is limited to that explorer’s chain, so repeat the review for every EVM network where you have used the wallet.
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3. Read each allowance before acting
For every result, identify:
- the token and its contract address;
- the spender contract or dapp name;
- the allowance amount, including whether it is unlimited;
- the network on which the permission exists; and
- the date or recency information available in the checker.
Prioritize unknown spenders, unlimited allowances, permissions for dapps you no longer use, and approvals granted during a suspicious session. Do not revoke a permission solely because you do not recognize a friendly display name; compare the spender address with the project’s official documentation when that distinction matters.
4. Choose Revoke and inspect the wallet prompt
Select Revoke for the allowance you want to remove. Your wallet will present a transaction for confirmation. Confirm that the network, contract address, and requested action match the checker. A revocation should not ask for your seed phrase, private key, or a “verification deposit.” Stop if the prompt instead asks you to approve a new token transfer or sign an unrelated message.
5. Confirm the transaction and budget gas
Approve the transaction in the wallet and wait for the network confirmation. Each allowance may require its own transaction and gas payment. Keep enough of the network’s native asset to submit the transaction; a token balance alone may not pay the fee.
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Refresh the checker after confirmation and inspect the same token and spender. The allowance should show zero, revoked, or the reduced value reported by that checker. If it has not changed, check that you used the correct network and address, that the transaction succeeded rather than reverted, and that you are viewing the same spender contract.
7. Repeat on every network
Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, and other networks maintain separate contracts and state. An Ethereum revocation does not remove an approval on Polygon. Repeat the complete process for each network where the wallet has interacted with dapps.
How to decide which approvals to revoke
Revocation has a convenience cost: a dapp may ask for approval again the next time you use it. Revoke.cash’s guidance describes the choice as a trade-off between safety and convenience. Use the following order when you have many entries:
- Unknown or suspicious spender: revoke immediately, especially if the permission was created during a phishing incident.
- Unlimited allowance: revoke if you no longer need the dapp, or replace it with a smaller cap where the wallet permits a limited approval.
- Completed one-time activity: remove approvals for a finished sale, bridge, lending deposit, or liquidity position after confirming that the position no longer needs the permission.
- Current, trusted activity: keep only the allowance required for the position and revisit it when the position closes or the dapp changes.
Do not assume that a hardware wallet makes an existing allowance harmless. A hardware or cold wallet protects the signing key from many online attacks, but an allowance granted by an active wallet remains a permission of that wallet until changed.
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Recognizing dangerous signing prompts
A wallet signing window is an authorization request, not a login screen. Read the token name, amount, spender, deadline, and network. “Sign message” does not automatically mean “read-only.” Permit-style systems can encode authorization in a signature rather than a conventional approval transaction, and MetaMask specifically advises treating Permit2 and similar prompts as real authorization when token details are shown.
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MetaMask’s February 2026 Crypto Security Report recorded a 207% rise in signature-phishing exploits. That figure is the report’s measured increase for its stated period; it is not a probability that any individual approval will be exploited. The practical response is to reject prompts you cannot explain and verify the site and contract through an official source before signing.
If funds are moving or a wallet may be compromised
Stop authorizing new actions
Close the suspicious dapp, disconnect it, and stop signing transactions or messages. Do not follow a stranger’s instructions to “validate” the wallet, and never type a seed phrase into a website or send it to support.
Protect remaining assets
If you can do so safely and you still control the key, move remaining assets to a clean wallet whose seed phrase has not been exposed. Do not wait for a revocation to complete if an attacker is actively using the wallet; every additional transaction can give the attacker another opportunity to act.
Revoke and investigate
From the cleanest device and an official checker, revoke suspicious allowances. Then investigate the original device for malware, browser-extension compromise, remote-access software, and seed-phrase exposure. If the seed phrase was revealed, assume the wallet is permanently compromised and do not return assets to it after revocation.
Revocation cannot recover assets already transferred. Record transaction hashes and destination addresses for your own incident report, but be realistic: a confirmed blockchain transfer generally cannot be reversed by the wallet provider.
Tools for checking approvals
The following options cover different workflows. The listed capabilities are those documented for each option; gas prices and transaction batching depend on the network and are not fixed by the checker.
| Tool | Coverage and inspection | How the action is performed |
|---|---|---|
| Revoke.cash | Searches by wallet address; filters by network, token, spender, and recency. | Select an allowance and confirm the resulting on-chain revocation in your wallet. |
| Official chain-explorer approval checker | Checks approvals on the explorer’s specific network. | Open the checker for that chain, review the listed permission, and submit the revocation transaction from your wallet. |
| MetaMask Auto-Revoking | Uses a narrow ERC-7715 token-approval-revocation permission; it does not hold users’ private keys. | Follow the feature’s wallet authorization flow and review what permission is being delegated before enabling it. |
No checker makes all networks identical. Confirm the chain selector and wallet address each time, and do not grant a monitoring service a broader permission than the task requires.
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Prevention habits that reduce future risk
Use the smallest practical spending cap
When a wallet offers a choice, approve only the amount needed for the swap or deposit rather than an unlimited allowance. A limited cap may require another approval for a later transaction, but it narrows the amount a compromised spender can move through that permission.
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Review permissions on a recurring schedule
Make allowance review part of your wallet routine. MetaMask gives monthly checking as an example habit, not a universal requirement. Review immediately after using an unfamiliar dapp, closing a position, or responding to a suspected phishing attempt.
Separate long-term holdings from active DeFi
Keep high-value, long-term assets in a wallet used as rarely as possible, and use a separate wallet for experimental dapps and routine trading. This separation limits the assets exposed if an active wallet signs a malicious approval. It does not eliminate the need to review allowances on either wallet.
Secure the signing environment
- Use official wallet and explorer domains saved as bookmarks.
- Keep the wallet extension, operating system, and browser updated.
- Remove extensions you do not recognize and review extension permissions.
- Never disclose a seed phrase or private key, including to someone claiming to be wallet support.
- Enable account protections such as two-factor authentication where the service supports them.
Endpoint-security software may help detect phishing or malware on the device, but it cannot change an on-chain allowance and is not a substitute for revoking permissions.
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“I disconnected the site, so the allowance is gone.”
Fix: inspect the allowance on the relevant chain and revoke it explicitly. Connection state and token state are separate.
“The checker says revoke, so any prompt is safe.”
Fix: compare the wallet prompt with the selected token, spender, network, and action. Reject a prompt that requests a new approval, an unexplained signature, or seed-phrase information.
“I revoked on Ethereum, so every network is covered.”
Fix: repeat the review on each network. Allowances are recorded separately by each chain’s contracts.
“The transaction disappeared, so it must have worked.”
Fix: wait for confirmation, inspect the transaction status, and refresh the allowance list. A failed or reverted transaction does not remove the permission.
“Revoking will return the tokens that were stolen.”
Fix: treat revocation as prevention only. If assets already moved, secure any remaining funds and investigate key or device compromise immediately.
Quick Recap
A practical maintenance checklist
- Bookmark the official checker you use and ignore unsolicited support links.
- Review every network where the wallet has interacted with a dapp.
- Sort attention toward unknown spenders, unlimited allowances, and old permissions.
- Read token, spender, amount, deadline, and network details before every signature.
- Keep native gas assets available for each network you actively use.
- Recheck the allowance after each revocation transaction confirms.
- Use separate wallets for long-term holdings and active experimentation.
- Assume a seed phrase is compromised if it was ever entered into a website or shared.
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