EIP-7702 Transactions Spike Post-Pectra—Phishers Circle Like Vultures

Ethereum’s latest upgrade ignites EIP-7702 activity—but security experts warn of a feeding frenzy for scammers.

Pectra’s promise meets reality: More efficient transactions, yes, but also fresh attack vectors. On-chain analysts report a 300% surge in malicious contract deployments within 48 hours of the hard fork.

The irony? The same smart contract flexibility that makes Ethereum powerful now fuels its phishing epidemic. ’It’s like installing bulletproof windows while leaving the front door wide open,’ quips a white-hat developer.

Meanwhile, institutional traders yawn—too busy chasing the next shiny DeFi narrative to care about security fundamentals. Some things never change.

EIP-7702 Transactions: What It Means for Ethereum Functionality

EIP-7702, one of the Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), upgrades regular external accounts (EOAs) into temporary smart contract wallets without requiring users to change addresses or migrate to new infrastructure. 

This advancement allows EOAs to batch multiple actions and use sponsored gas. It also integrates passkey authentication, imposes spending limits, and enables wallet recovery, all while retaining full user control. 

The process works by signing a transaction and delegating execution to a smart contract. This temporarily allows Ethereum to run that code as if it were the user. Importantly, the delegation is safe, revocable, and network-specific.

“EIP-7702 is gaining traction fast. Ethereum’s upgrade is already seeing serious activity on-chain,” noted segment lead Everstake.eth on X (Twitter). 

Since Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade hit the mainnet on May 7, the feature has seen a major step toward closing the functionality gap between standard and smart contract wallets. 

The integration makes advanced decentralized applications (dApps) more accessible, potentially transforming how users interact with Ethereum.

Jesse Pollak, creator of Base Network, highlighted that EIP-7702 dramatically improves the user experience. Speaking to BeInCrypto, he said existing wallets can become smart wallets without changing their address. 

Pollak also emphasized that this ease could encourage more users to explore decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 without the friction of switching tools or managing multiple wallet types.

Security Experts Warn of Asset Drains

However, the same flexibility that empowers users has also drawn attention from security experts. They warn of growing phishing threats tied to smart wallet features.

One such expert, WiiMee.eth, explained that phishing attacks are now advancing to exploit the transaction bundling enabled by EIP-7702. 

“Wallet drainers just got deadly efficient…Smart accounts made draining faster and easier to miss,” said WiiMee.eth, a crypto wallet safety expert. 

WiiMee.eth described how a malicious website disguised as a token mint bundled approval permissions for NFTs and ERC-20 tokens into a single click. With advanced transaction details turned off in MetaMask, the user saw only a generic prompt, unaware that their assets were being silently authorized for transfer.

The implications are alarming. WiiMee warned that streamlined UX (user experience), while beneficial for usability, also reduces friction, which benefits attackers. 

Unlike previous scams that required multiple signature pop-ups, these new phishing attempts rely on a single bundled transaction. According to the crypto wallet safety expert, this makes them harder to detect and faster to execute.

Similarly, security expert SlowMist disclosed a new phishing campaign by the notorious group Inferno Drainer. This sophisticated scam used MetaMask’s EIP-7702 delegator contract to perform batch authorization from a victim’s address. 

“The phishing used the mechanism in MetaMask: EIP-7702 Delegator to complete the batch authorization phishing and stealing operations,” SlowMist explained.

The delegated address appeared legitimate, not raising any red flags, while the attacker executed pre-programmed instructions to drain the user’s assets. 

Affected transactions, including one traced to the victim address 0xc6D2…, were confirmed on-chain and shared by SlowMist as part of their ongoing investigation.

As EIP-7702 adoption continues, the Ethereum community is at a crossroads. On the one hand, it needs to integrate wallet functionality; on the other, it must safeguard users from growing threats. 

While the upgrade marks a major leap forward for the network, it also highlights the urgent need for wallet interfaces and user education to advance alongside it. 

Without stronger transaction transparency and smarter security cues, the same tools to empower users may inadvertently make them more vulnerable.