Revok adds new feature after users complain about fake approval scam

Approval management platform Revoke has released a fix aimed at taking down a new crypto scam that involves tricking crypto users into revoking “fake approvals” and then charging them exorbitantly high transaction fees.

On July 9, Revoke.cash said it had received reports of people seeing unknown approval transactions in their transaction history.

Yesterday, we received reports from people seeing unknown approval transactions in their transaction history.

It turns out that this is a new scam where scammers use so-called gas tokens to steal money when victims cancel these “fake approvals”. pic.twitter.com/vpY2sGIv0T

— Revoke.Cash (@RevokeCash) 9 July 2023

In fact, scammers are using “gas tokens” to trick victims into believing they have suspicious transaction approvals.

“It turns out this is a new scam where scammers use so-called gas tokens to steal money when victims cancel these “fake approvals.”

Gas tokens were developed when Ethereum network fees started climbing. Users can effectively store cheap gas during periods of low network demand.

“This allowed users to create gas tokens when fees were low and burn them when fees were high, effectively “locking in” low fees,” Revok explained.

However, Revok said that scammers are creating fake gas tokens that they circulate with fake approvals that users think they need to revoke.

Counterfeit tokens are programmed to generate a lot of gas during canceled transactions, the newly created gas tokens are sent back to the scammers and the victim has to pay high transaction fees.

Revok said it has now resolved this issue by adding a check that disables approval cancellation if there are excessive gas charges. It advised users to ignore fake endorsements:

“The best thing to do with these fake approvals/fake tokens is to ignore them. They can’t steal your money unless you negotiate with them.”

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Revoke is a preventive tool that helps users practice secure crypto wallet behavior by managing or revoking active approvals, such as are no longer required by DeFi protocols.

Platforms like Revok are urging users to revoke approval for MultiChain after a multimillion-dollar network exploit on July 7th. This has given scammers a new way to entice victims to approve the cancellation of their fake transactions.

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