"What I Sign Is Not What I See": Towards Explainable and Trustworthy Cryptocurrency Wallet Signatures

2026-01-23

AI Summary

This study addresses the critical security risks arising from users’ limited understanding of their true intent and associated hazards when signing cryptocurrency wallet transactions. Through a user study (N=128), the authors identify key cognitive biases in signature comprehension and reframe the problem as one of “intent interpretability.” They propose a novel visualization framework that integrates semantic parsing with interaction design to translate technical transaction parameters into plain language and contextual risk warnings prior to signing. The framework combines structured parsing, semantic annotation, and risk-aware context modeling to enhance user awareness. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the prototype system significantly improves users’ accuracy in risk identification and confidence in decision-making, while simultaneously reducing cognitive load.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction
• Humans and AI: Intelligent User Interfaces
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Cryptocurrency and smart contracts
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Attacks and countermeasures in recommendation systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies

Abstract

Cryptocurrency wallets have become the primary gateway to decentralized applications, yet users often face significant difficulty in discerning what a wallet signature actually does or entails. Prior work has mainly focused on mitigating protocol vulnerabilities, with limited attention to how users perceive and interpret what they are authorizing. To examine this usability-security gap, we conducted two formative studies investigating how users interpret authentic signing requests and what cues they rely on to assess risk. Findings reveal that users often misread critical parameters, underestimate high-risk signatures, and rely on superficial familiarity rather than understanding transaction intent. Building on these insights, we designed the Signature Semantic Decoder -- a prototype framework that reconstructs and visualizes the intent behind wallet signatures prior to confirmation. Through structured parsing and semantic labeling, it demonstrates how signing data can be transformed into plain-language explanations with contextual risk cues. In a between-subjects user study (N = 128), participants using the prototype achieved higher accuracy in identifying risky signatures, improved clarity and decision confidence, and lower cognitive workload compared with the baseline wallet interface. Our study reframes wallet signing as a problem of interpretability within secure interaction design and offers design implications for more transparent and trustworthy cryptocurrency wallet interfaces.

Problem

• cryptocurrency wallet
• signature interpretability
• user trust
• transaction intent
• usability-security gap

Innovation

• signature interpretability
• semantic decoding
• cryptocurrency wallet
• user-centered security
• explainable transactions