Revoke Addresses Crypto Scam Involving Fake Approvals

Approval management platform Revoke has issued a patch to mitigate a new crypto scam that involves luring crypto users into revoking “fake approvals” and then charging them exorbitant transaction fees.

Revoke. Cash announced on July 9 that it had received reports of individuals observing unknown approvals in their transaction histories.

In reality, fraudsters have used so-called “gas tokens” to convince victims they have suspicious transaction approvals.

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

Gas tokens were created when Ethereum network fees began to rise. During periods of low network demand, users could effectively store cheap gas.

“This allowed users to mint gas tokens when fees were low and burn them when fees were high, effectively “locking in” the lower fee,” Revoke explained.

However, according to Revoke, fraudsters have been creating fake gas tokens that they airdrop with fake permissions that users believe they need to revoke.

The bogus tokens have been programmed to generate a large amount of gas during a reversed transaction, with the newly minted gas tokens being sent back to the scammers, resulting in a high transaction fee for the victim.

Revoke stated that it has now resolved the issue by adding a check that prevents approvals from being revoked if there is an excessive gas fee. It advised users to disregard the counterfeit approvals:

“Best thing to do with these fake approvals / fake tokens is to ignore them. As long as you don’t interact with them, they can’t steal your funds.”

Revoke is a preventative tool that enables users to manage or revoke active approvals, such as those that are no longer required by DeFi protocols.

Following the multimillion-dollar network exploits on July 7, platforms such as Revoke have urged users to revoke Multichain authorizations. This has given con artists a new way to convince victims to approve fraudulent transaction revocations.