Revoke.cash - Helping web3 users stay safe

[rkalis]

Project Name: Revoke.cash

Project Description and why it’s classified as a Public Good:
Revoke.cash is a suite of end-user security tools that help people stay safe in crypto. It was created by me in 2019 as a side projects, but over the past years it has grown into a staple of web3 security tooling. The main product is a token approvals dashboard that enables users to inspect and manage their token approvals across 60+ different networks. We’ve also created a browser extension that provides pre-transaction warnings for certain high-risk interactions.

All of our software is provided free of charge and open source licensed (MIT). We may add certain paid features in the future if it’s required in order to sustain the product or enable those features. Even if we do add these kinds of paid features, we plan to open source this functionality, so that it is possible to self-host instead.

Funding sources:
All funding has been from Grants, donations and sponsorships. In descending order of amounts received from inception until now: Gitcoin Grants, Optimism RetroPGF, Sponsorships, ENS Grants, Direct Donations.

Seeking project-specific funding or funding for general operations:
We’re seeking funding for general operations. All grant funds we receive goes towards paying for continued development, infrastructure, and other running costs.

Team Information, including backgrounds and roles:

• Rosco Kalis: Founder and Full-Stack Developer. Also handles all surrounding business activities, such as social media, marketing, administration, etc.
• Dries Steenberghe: Full-Stack Developer (Part Time).
• Several contractors in the fields of design and development that we’ve worked closely with from time to time on a project basis.

Social Credibility / Links:
GitHub repository with development: GitHub - RevokeCash/revoke.cash: ❌ Revoke or update your token approvals
Twitter with social media activity: https://twitter.com/RevokeCash

Some examples of mentions from high profile companies:
Coinbase: help.coinbase.com/en-au/wallet/security/dapp-permissions-token-approvals
OpenSea: support.opensea.io/hc/en-us/articles/4410153816723-How-can-I-cancel-or-lower-the-price-of-NFT-listings-
Ledger: support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/9038403790237-Revoke-active-allowances-with-revoke-cash
Sushi: RouteProcessor2 Post Mortem | Sushi

Discord contact: roscokalis

Eligibility Criteria:

• Do you have a commitment to open-source (i.e. every open-source license accepted by the Open-Source Initiative) technology and sharing results publicly?
• Have you provided transparency about how exactly funding will be used?
• Are you advancing values of freedom and privacy (no surveillance and handling of personal data)?
• Are you supporting decentralization in various fields (for example building Web3 projects)?
• Have you provided social media channels to the extent that we can confirm social proof of your project?

[james]

Quite the timing for you all to join with everything that took place last week. Really a big fan of your project, and thanks a ton for sharing these extra resources.

I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t yet checked out Revoke to go and do so. Go see what tx’s you’ve signed and what dapps youve given permissions to, as it can be extremely important for keeping your funds safe!

[nixo]

Incredibly fast thinking taking the website offline almost immediately last week - you guys handled that very well. Makes me very happy revoke continues to get funding in the ecosystem! Grateful for y’all, have used revoke many times in the past few years

[rkalis]

Thank you for the kind words, it’s definitely been quite the week!

[rkalis]

Hey everyone!

It’s time for an update ahead of Epoch 3. Below we’ll list our achievements, plans and funding information since our Epoch 2 application.

Achievements / developments since Epoch 2 application

• Overhauled the signatures dashboard to make it easier for users to understand what they already cancelled and to make sure they don’t accidentally cancel signatures repeatedly
• Added indicators for old approvals
• Added search functionality to the network selection dropdowns
• Added support for X new mainnets (Blast, ZetaChain, ZKFair, EOS EVM, Bitrock, GoldX, Kroma, Mode, RARI Chain, Darwinia, Crab) and several testnets
• Added exploit checkers for 3 new exploits (Socket Hack, Concentric Hack, Seneca Hack)
• Several other fixes and improvements

Also check out our monthly update blog posts for December, January, and February for more details.

Upcoming milestones / plans for Epoch 3

In the background, we’ve been working mostly on helping users get a better understanding of the risks that their token approvals pose. To do so we plan to launch NFT pricing information soon and we also want to start adding more risk indicators, such as potential malicious token approvals.

We are also working on creating a service where users can subscribe and get notified of new token approvals as well as get weekly digests that share updates and advise on their token approvals / wallet health.

Epoch 2 funding usage

Epoch 2 funds have been combined with our other funding sources. Since our Epoch 2 application, we have mostly spent money on salaries (Dries and me), paying contractors for design and content work, and paying for services (such as Infura/Alchemy, Etherscan, brand protection, etc).

We plan to continue spending money towards these same ends, and potentially look into adding a part time community manager / content writer to the team in the coming months.

Other funding

Since our application for Epoch 2, we have received a 50k USDC grant from ENS Grants and ~150k OP in Optimism’s RetroPGF program. We also receive an average of $1000 in direct donations from our users per month.

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We are happy to be a part of the Octant community and we are grateful for the support that Octant and these other grants programs provide. We’re looking forward to keeping even more people safe in the coming months!

[james]

This is great, thanks for sharing all of the info!

[rkalis]

Hey everyone!

It’s time for an update ahead of Epoch 4. While we did not receive any funding in Epoch 3, there were over 130 people that voted for us last Epoch, which we take as a clear signal that there is interest in funding us again. We’re very grateful to everyone that voted for us in Epoch 3 and hope that you’ll vote for us again in Epoch 4.

Below we’ll list our achievements, plans and funding information since our previous update.

Achievements / developments since previous update

• Revoke x ScamSniffer: We teamed up with ScamSniffer to add indicators for known malicious token approvals.
• Refactors, refactors, refactors: We had been putting off updating to the latest major versions for manny of our most important dependencies, such as Viem and Next.js. These upgrades came with major breaking changes, but as of now, we are fully caught up again with latest best practices. We also refactored a lot of other internal code to make it simpler to add more networks and other functionality.
• Removed Wallet Health Score: we added the wallet health score last September, but unfortunately found that it raised more questions than it answered, so we removed it recently. We are working on a replacement that will provide more actionable insights.
• Improved performance for a dozen networks.
• Added support for 13 new mainnets (Merlin, Astar zkEVM, Degen Chain, Fraxtal, Beam, Redstone, BOB, inEVM, Immutable zkEVM, zkLink Nova, RSS3 VSL, Viction, Neon EVM) and several testnets.
• Added exploit checkers for 5 new exploits (Unizen Hack, ParaSwap Whitehat Hack, Dolomite Hack, Merkle Hack, Magpie Hack).
• Many other fixes and improvements

Also check out our monthly update blog posts for March, April, and May for more details.

Upcoming milestones / plans for Epoch 4

In the last update we mentioned that we were working on providing better risk insights through better pricing information and risk indicators. Since then we’ve added some new indicators, but more elaborate insights are still in progress.

We briefly launched our NFT pricing information, but had to take it down due to performance issues. We are also working on fixing these issues in the near future. We are also still working on creating the notification service that we mentioned in the previous update, that we intend to launch into beta during the next Epoch.

Epoch 3 funding usage

We did not receive any funding during Epoch 3, and our expenses have been mostly stable since the last update (i.e. salaries / contractors and services). We have a new Community & Content team member that starts this week, so that will bring additional running costs into the next Epoch.

Other funding

Since our last update, we have received $23k in donations on Gitcoin Grants, with another $15k in matching to be received. We also receive an average of $500 to $1000 in direct donations from our users per month.

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We are happy to be a part of the Octant community and we are grateful for the support that Octant and other grants programs provide. We’re looking forward to keeping even more people safe in the coming months!

[rkalis]

Hey everyone!

It is time for an update ahead of Epoch 5. We’ve received close to 25 ETH / $80k in Epoch 4. We are incredibly grateful to everyone that voted for us and we hope that you will want to vote for us in upcoming epochs as well.

Below we’ll list our achievements, plans and funding information since our previous update - according to the Long Term Update template. This is the first time using this template, so any feedback is welcome!

Funding

The first epoch we participated in was at the beginning of this year (Epoch 2). We also receive funding from other sources, so we list our spendings regardless of its source.

• Total Funds Received from Octant so far: ~$120k
• Funds Spent (past 6 months): $120k

Detailed Utilization

Most of our spending goes towards salaries of our 3 team members. Besides that we also have significant monthly infrastructure costs (server costs and data providers) and spend money on brand protection / scam website takedowns, administration, and contractors.

Milestones and Deliverables

• Milestone 1:

  • Description: Rebranding
  • Immediate Outcome: A more distinctive brand that is more flexible to expand our products / tooling beyond what we currently offer.
  • Funding Used: ~$20k

• Milestone 2:

  • Description: Redesign of the browser extension
  • Immediate Outcome: An extension that is easier to understand and use, keeping users safer.
  • Funding Used: ~$15k

• Milestone 3:

  • Description: Add support for Taiko, Sei, Mint, Sanko, re.al, Berachain bArtio
  • Immediate Outcome: People will be able to keep their funds safe across networks.
  • Funding Used: ~$10k

• Karma GAP: https://gap.karmahq.xyz/project/revokecash-1/grants

Also check out our monthly update blog posts for June and July.

Challenges

N/A

Outputs and Outcomes

Outputs (Last Epoch):

• Output 1: Rebrand and redesign
• Output 2: Support for additional networks

Short-term Outcomes:

• Outcome 1: It becomes easier for us to work on more features not strictly inside of the direct ETH ecosystem
• Outcome 2: More people can use our products on more of the networks they like to use

Long-term Outcomes:

• Outcome 1: People will have more brand awareness around the Revoke tools
• Outcome 2: More blockchain ecosystems will consider financially supporting Revoke

Plans for Potential Funds Raised in the Next Octant Allocation Window

• Goal 1:
  • Description: Improved risk assessments
  • Expected Outcome: People will be better informed to make decisions about which token approvals to revoke
  • Funding Needed: $30k
• Goal 2:
  • Description: Better flow for sequentially revoking multiple token approvals
  • Expected Outcome: People will find it easier to revoke multiple token approvals, and will more easily leave a donation / tip at the end of the flow
  • Funding Needed: $30k

Other Funding

Since our last update, we have received no new funding besides the $500-$1000 direct donations that we receive from our users.

Future Plans for Financial Sustainability

Revoke.cash is a 100% free and open source public good. Initiatives like Octant, Optimism Retro Funding and Gitcoin Grants have given us the financial support that we need to continue offering all our services for free. As long as we continue receiving enough funding from these public sources, we want to continue being a 100% public good.

If the funding that we get from these public grants programs is significantly reduced then we have some ideas around potential subscription plans with added premium functionality, but this is not our preference and we will only look towards those options if needed to financially sustain the project.

[mat7ias]

Thanks @rkalis great to see the progress Revoke.cash is making, especially with the rebranding and expanding support to more networks. The upcoming plans for improved risk assessments and revoking multiple token approvals sound like they’ll be really valuable for revoke cash users. I’ve always wanted that feature myself as well. Loving it!

[rkalis]

Hey everyone!

It is time for an update ahead of Epoch 5. We’ve received about 22 ETH / $65k in Epoch 4. We are incredibly grateful to everyone that voted for us and we hope that you will want to vote for us in upcoming epochs as well.

This is the second time using this template, and sometimes it can still be difficult to properly fill it out, so feedback is welcome. Especially the difference between milestones and output/outcome reporting and the differences between short and long term outcomes are still a bit hard for us to grasp.

• Total Funds Received from Octant so far: $185k
• Funds Spent: $185k

Detailed Utilization

Most of our spending goes towards salaries of our 3 team members. Besides that we also have significant monthly infrastructure costs (server costs and data providers) and spend money on brand protection / scam website takedowns, administration, and contractors.

This quarter we have also made some additional costs for travel and merchandise to attend devcon and give out our first ever Revoke merch.

Milestones and Deliverables

• Milestone 1:
  • Description: Improved risk indicators
  • Immediate Outcome: It becomes easier for users to determine potentially dangerous token approvals and have a better idea of the overall risk of their approvals.
  • Funding Used: $20k
• Milestone 2:
  • Description: Batch revoking
  • Immediate Outcome: It is easier for users to revoke larger numbers of token approvals seamlessly.
  • Funding Used: $35k
• Karma GAP: Revoke.cash | Karma GAP
• Milestone 3:
  • Description: Add support for ApeChain, World Chain, Morph, Chiliz, Zircuit, Bitlayer, Shape, Lisk, Geist, ZERO.
  • Immediate Outcome: More people will be able to use Revoke.cash, and for more of their networks.
  • Funding Used: $10k
• Karma GAP: Revoke.cash | Karma GAP

Also check out our monthly update blog posts for August, September, October and November.

Challenges

• Description: One challenge that we also touched on in the past update is sustainability as a public good. It is our intention to be and stay a 100% free and open source public good. While initiatives like Octant help with providing funding to do that, providing fully free and open source services sustainably remains a challenge.
• Updates: Because public goods funding is a field that is still very much in the process of being shaped, it is hard to rely on specific funding sources. For example: while nothing is set in stone yet, it seems like Revoke.cash may not be eligible for Optimism’s Retro Funding in 2025 due to the way they are shaping their program, which was a significant source of funding in 2024.
• Resolution: We try to diversify our public goods funding sources to not rely too much on specific programs, but the public goods funding space is not huge, so this is still an ongoing challenge. As the public goods space matures and funding initiatives become more lindy, we also expect it to be easier to rely on these programs.
• Lessons Learned: It is best to not rely on any specific program too much, but rather try to diversify funding sources when trying to build a 100% public good.

Outputs and Outcomes

Output 1: Risk indicators

• Short-term outcome: Users have more information to make decisions.
• Long-term outcome: Improved user satisfaction and retention.

Output 2: Batch revoking (including updated donations UI)

• Short-term outcome: Users can revoke multiple token approvals more easily, leading to reduced friction when using our tools.
• Short-term outcome: Users are confronted with a decision to donate more often and in a way that is more integrated into the usage flow.
• Long-term outcome: Improved user satisfaction and retention.
• Long-term outcome: Increased donations revenue.

Output 3: Support for additional networks

• Short-term outcome: Users can stay safe and use our tools across more networks.
• Short-term outcome: A broader audience of users that we can target.
• Long-term outcome: Improved user satisfaction and retention.
• Long-term outcome: More unique users and longer time spent on our platform.
• Long-term outcome: Additional revenue through support from companies / foundations behind the supported networks.

Output 4: Revoke Merchandise

• Short-term outcome: People enjoy receiving free stuff.
• Long-term outcome: Improved brand awareness around Revoke (especially the new branding).

Plans for Potential Funds Raised in the Next Octant Allocation Window

These are some of the short-to-mid-term goals that we have. This might be too much for the coming epoch, but in that case some of the goals can be pushed into the epoch after.

• Goal 1: Revoke Wrapped 2024
  • Description: An overview of the approvals/revokes that a user did in 2024.
  • Expected Outcome: People will gain awareness of their onchain activities regarding token approvals, and learn more about the importance of approvals management.
  • Funding Needed: $20k
• Goal 2: Support for LUKSO.
  • Description: This is separate from support for other EVM chains since it requires specific changes to support LUKSO’s token standards.
  • Expected Outcome: More people will be able to use Revoke.cash, and for more of their networks.
  • Funding Needed: $20k
• Goal 3: Approval history tab
  • Description: An extra tab with a timeline of approval/revoke transactions.
  • Expected Outcome: People get more insight into the events / actions that led to the state of their token approvals, which can be especially helpful in case they have been scammed. This will hopefully lead to more time spent on the platform and higher retention.
  • Funding Needed: $30k
• Goal 4: Delegations checker
  • Description: Right now we offer functionality to check/revoke token approvals and offchain signatures. We would like to add a similar dashboard for delegations through platforms like Delegate.xyz.
  • Expected Outcome: Users can perform more security-related checks/actions on Revoke. Hopefully leading to better retention and more time spent on the platform.
  • Funding Needed: $30k

Other Funding

Since our last update, we have also received $28k from Gitcoin Grants GG22 (includes both primary donations and matching). Since launching our updated donations UI with batch revoking, we are now also receiving more direct donations on our website ($2-3k per month in October and November).

Future Plans for Financial Sustainability

Because of Octant and other public goods funding sources, we are still receiving enough funding to continue offering Revoke.cash as a public good. So no changes since last update. See comments in Challenges for some additional context.

[durgadas]

Can you also crosspost this to project_submissions in our Discord? Discord
Thanks!