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What does revoking a token approval mean?
Revoking an approval means sending a transaction that cancels, or sets to zero, a permission you gave a smart contract to spend your tokens. After it is confirmed, that contract can no longer move those tokens from your wallet.
What it means for you
Revoking is itself a transaction, so it costs a network fee and takes effect only once confirmed. It stops future withdrawals by that contract; it cannot recover tokens already taken.
A common mistake: “Revoking the approval gets back the tokens a drainer took.”
In fact: A revoke only changes what the contract may do from now on. Tokens already moved are in someone else's address, and no revoke can pull them back.
How it works
For an ERC-20 token, a revoke is an ordinary approve call that sets the spender's allowance to 0; for NFTs, it is a setApprovalForAll call that disables the operator. Revoke tools list the contracts your address has approved and build that transaction for you to sign in your wallet. You pay the network fee, and the change takes effect only once confirmed. ethereum.org notes that revoking does not affect positions you already hold in staking or lending, and it prevents future access rather than recovering tokens already taken.
Sources: ethereum.org: How to revoke smart contract access, EIP-20: Token Standard, EIP-721: Non-Fungible Token Standard · checked 4 October 2026
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