How to Revoke Token Approvals After Using a Crypto Site

After using a dapp, an airdrop or a reward site, it's worth asking whether that site can still touch your tokens. The answer sits in your token approvals, which stay on-chain long after you close the tab. This guide covers finding them, deciding which to keep and revoking the rest.

Short answer

Revoke an approval when you no longer use the site, no longer trust it or approved something you don't understand. List your approvals with a checker for each network you use, revoke the unneeded ones (each revoke is a small on-chain transaction) and check again afterwards.

What token approval means

A token approval can let a smart contract spend or move a specific token up to an allowed amount. It is not the same as simply connecting a wallet.

Why approvals matter

A risky or malicious approval may expose tokens to loss if the contract is abused or designed to drain funds.

When to review approvals

Review approvals after using unknown dapps, claim sites, airdrops, games, reward platforms or any page that asked for spending permission.

• unknown dapp
• airdrop claim
• token swap
• staking site
• reward platform
• wallet popup

Approval vs connection

Connecting a wallet may show an address. Approving a token can grant spending permission. Signing a transaction can perform an action.

How to revoke, step by step

The process is the same on most EVM networks.

• Open an approval checker such as Revoke.cash or the block explorer's own tool (Etherscan's Token Approval Checker on Ethereum, the equivalents on other explorers).
• Connect or paste your wallet address and pick the right network. Approvals are per network.
• Sort by value at risk and look for unlimited allowances and spenders you don't recognize.
• Click revoke on each one you don't need and confirm the transaction in your wallet. It costs a little gas.
• Reload the list after confirmation to make sure the allowance shows as zero.

Don't forget NFTs, permits and Permit2

NFT approvals usually take the form of SetApprovalForAll, which covers a whole collection at once. Permit signatures grant allowances without any transaction, so they only show up afterwards in a checker. And allowances given through Uniswap's Permit2 contract are listed separately from normal token approvals. Make sure the checker you use covers all three, and revoke the entries you don't recognize. MetaMask's own guide, checked on October 31, 2026, lists several tools, from block-explorer checkers on Etherscan, BscScan and Polygonscan to Revoke.cash, which supports more than 80 networks.

Safer habit

Use a separate low-value wallet for experiments and review approvals regularly, especially after testing reward sites.

Sources

Checked on October 31, 2026.

• MetaMask guide to revoking token approvals: https://support.metamask.io/more-web3/learn/how-to-revoke-smart-contract-allowances-token-approvals/
• Etherscan Token Approval Checker: https://etherscan.io/tokenapprovalchecker
• Revoke.cash: https://revoke.cash/
• EIP-2612 permit signatures: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-2612

Decision rule

If you cannot explain why an approval is still needed, consider revoking it before keeping value in that wallet.

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