Ethereum: new proposal to deactivate EIP-7702, exploited during the Binance hack

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https://cryptoast.fr/ethereum-eip-8476-desactiver-eip-7702-hack-binance/

The developer known under the pseudonym "nicolashw" has published in recent days a draft of an EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) referenced under number 8476. Entitled "Permanent EOA Delegation Opt-Out", the aim of this improvement is to allow the holder of a classic external wallet, also called EOA (externally owned account), to irreversibly deactivate the ability to delegate its execution to a smart contract (a " opt-out").

Technically, the operation goes through a special transaction that writes a non-executable code marker (0xef0200) to the account status. Once placed, this marker cannot be removed or replaced by a new delegation.

The account would keep its address, could still send transactions, receive ETH, tokens or NFTs. Only the delegation functionality provided by the EIP-7702 would become permanently inaccessible.

On October 29, 2026, the Binance platform suffered a massive hack in which EIP-7702 played a central role. A commentator on EIP-8476, with the pseudonym “it44”, also provided a detailed on-chain analysis on the discussion thread.

In a single transaction (type 4), the attacker submitted 50 delegation authorizations signed with the key of the wallet identified as “Binance 14” by Etherscan. All pointed to a contract designed to siphon off the wallet, and each had a different order number (nonce) so that at least one of them was valid at the time of execution. And just one of these permissions was enough, because the delegation remains active until explicitly revoked.

The EIP-7702 vector also constitutes the specificity of the attack which targeted digital assets on Ethereum kept by Binance. According to the analysis published by TRM Labs, the other blockchains targeted that day were emptied using classic signed transfers, without any delegation. The attacker therefore had the capacity to produce valid signatures on all of the compromised wallets, and only Ethereum offered the permanent delegation shortcut with EIP-7702.

👉 On the same subject – Binance Hack: what is Ethereum’s EIP-7702, which would have amplified losses?

The types of users most affected by EIP-8476 are clearly identified. These are exchange hot wallets, corporate treasuries and institutional wallets. So many actors who do not need execution delegation.

Machine-translated from French