Persistent on-chain delegated authority

Definition & limits

A blockchain authorization can install continuing execution rights rather than authorize one payment. Under EIP-7702, an externally owned account can sign permission for code delegation. Once installed, later calls can execute through that code without using the original exchange application's withdrawal route. Revoking the application's UI permission or freezing its withdrawal queue therefore need not revoke the on-chain authorization.

In the October 29 Binance intrusion, the attacker reached a production wallet-signing service and established attacker-controlled delegation. Blockaid inspected the transaction and describes one effective delegation among fifty nonce-candidate authorizations; Binance uses different counting language in its own incident chronology. Neither figure should be reported as fifty successful delegations. Binance says its multi-party-computation architecture made immediate revocation more involved than signing with a single private key. A later signed corrective transaction was required to change the blockchain state.

The security gate should check the chain ID, nonce, target code, permitted operation and the time over which authority survives, before a signer emits the authorization. Afterward, confirm the actual on-chain state and remaining delegation, not merely whether withdrawal service was paused. This is the durable version of effect-bound approval: approving one intent must not silently become control over future balances. The exchange's report that an internal AI tool was used earlier in lateral movement does not show that the tool selected or executed the delegation.

Examples

• Binance October 29 wallet signer authorized an EIP-7702 delegation that outlived withdrawal suspension.
• An agent approval of a signer request does not prove later blockchain transfers share that approval.

Explicit mappings

Research using this topic (4)