What is EIP-7702? The Ethereum Upgrade Behind the $6.4B Binance Hack

EIP-7702 lets ordinary Ethereum wallets run smart contract code, enabling batched and sponsored transactions. Here's how it works.

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Mechanism of EIP-7702: EIP-7702 introduces 'set code transactions' that allow an Externally Owned Account (EOA) to delegate its behavior to a smart contract. By signing an authorization, an EOA attaches a pointer (delegation indicator) to a specific contract, enabling features like gas sponsorship and batched transactions, effectively granting that contract full control over the account's funds until the delegation is cleared or updated.
Role in the $6.4B Binance Hack: Security analysts, including those from Blockaid, clarified that EIP-7702 was an instrument rather than the root cause of the hack. Attackers utilized compromised signing systems to submit pre-signed EIP-7702 authorizations, allowing them to consolidate the exfiltration of assets into a single 'sweep' transaction rather than executing multiple individual transfers, which may have allowed them to evade specific security checks.