New Ethereum Draft Proposes Allowing Wallets to Permanently Disable EIP-7702 Delegation

Oct. 31 — According to The Defiant, Ethereum developer nicolashw submitted a draft core EIP proposal on Oct. 30 titled "Permanent Exit from EOA Delegation," which would allow key-controlled wallets to permanently disable EIP-7702 delegation, letting account owners refuse smart contract execution at their existing addresses. The proposal has not yet been assigned a number and remains open and unmerged; activation would require a network upgrade. The draft would use a currently invalid EIP-7702 type 4 transaction to install a non-executable three-byte marker in the account, causing future delegation authorizations to be skipped. The account retains its address, normal transfer and contract-calling capabilities, but incoming calls will not execute code.

The draft notes that this feature can only block EIP-7702 delegation and cannot guard against other risks after a private key is stolen. If the private key is leaked, an attacker can still move funds, grant token approvals or sign contract authorizations, and existing approvals would not be revoked. Exiting delegation could also disable recovery features that rely on delegation, or render assets that require the old delegation code inaccessible.