Ethereum Foundation launches ERC-7730 Clear Signing registry

The Ethereum Foundation on Tuesday launched a public registry at clearsigning.org, named ERC-7730 as the Clear Signing format and released software libraries to help wallets display human-readable transaction descriptions.

Clear Signing refers to structured, plain-language descriptions of what a blockchain transaction will do, shown to users instead of raw calldata. The foundation used the phrase “What You See Is What You Sign” and offered examples such as “you are swapping 100 USDC for 0.05 (ETH) on Uniswap” to illustrate how descriptions will appear to users.

ERC-7730, an open standard first proposed by Ledger in 2024, will serve as the format for those descriptions. The clearsigning.org registry accepts descriptor submissions for smart contracts, which will be reviewed and attested by independent security experts. Descriptors are stored off-chain so they can be used with existing contracts without on-chain changes. Wallets can fetch verified descriptors from the registry and present them to users before signature approval.

The foundation published tooling libraries intended to lower the work required for wallets and developers. Wallets that integrate the libraries can pull verified descriptors and display consistent, structured information to users prior to signing a transaction.

The foundation cited blind signing as a security risk and noted past attacks that exploited it. It referenced a Lazarus Group operation that resulted in a $1.4 billion theft from an exchange after malicious transactions were approved without clear descriptions.

Developers were encouraged to submit accurate descriptors for their contracts and to invite security experts to review and attest to those descriptors. The foundation listed contributors to the Clear Signing effort, including ZKnox, Sourcify, Cyfrin, Zama, WalletConnect, Fireblocks, Trezor, Keycard, MetaMask, Argot and independent contributors across the ecosystem.

The announcement follows other foundation work on security and usability. The foundation has increased support for privacy and security research, including post-quantum efforts, formed a “Trillion Dollar Security” team with a focus in part on user experience, and launched a $1 million subsidy program to help cover audit costs. The foundation wrote it aims to act as a credibly neutral steward for the Clear Signing registry and to make the standard and tooling widely available.