When a project team says "ownership has been renounced," you might think the contract is really safe. That's a common misconception — many projects only renounce the owner of the "business logic contract," while the Proxy Admin contract that truly controls upgrade rights is still in the project team's hands. As long as the Proxy Admin has an owner, they can secretly swap out the contract logic at any time and drain your funds.
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Here are 3 steps to identify and check Proxy Admin permissions.
Prerequisite: Understand the two-layer structure of "proxy contracts"
Many projects don't deploy a business contract directly. Instead, they deploy a "proxy contract" (Proxy) that users interact with, while the real business logic sits in a separate "logic contract" (Implementation). This design makes it easier to fix bugs or add features later.
The problem: the proxy contract's "admin" (Proxy Admin) has the authority to replace the logic contract. If this admin privilege hasn't been transferred or renounced, the project team can upgrade the contract arbitrarily later and replace the previously safe logic with a malicious version.
This means: you checked the business contract's owner and found it was sent to a burn address (renounced) — but that doesn't mean the contract can't be upgraded. The real upgrade authority lives in the Proxy Admin contract.
Step 1: Locate the Proxy Admin address on the block explorer
What to do: Find the token/project's proxy contract, then identify the Proxy Admin contract linked to it.
How to do it:
Enter the project's contract address on Etherscan or BscScan. If a "This contract is a proxy" badge appears at the top, the contract uses a proxy pattern.
Click the "Read as Proxy" button next to the badge, or look at the "Implementation Address" and "Proxy Admin" fields on the contract details page.
If the Proxy Admin isn't shown directly, go to the "Read Contract" tab and find read-only functions like
admin()orgetProxyAdmin(). The address returned by the call is the Proxy Admin address.
When you're done: You have a concrete Proxy Admin contract address.
Common failure point: Only checking the owner() of the business logic contract (Implementation) and never looking at the proxy contract page. Renouncing the business contract doesn't mean the proxy's upgrade rights have been abandoned.
Step 2: Check who owns the Proxy Admin contract
What to do: Look up the owner address of the Proxy Admin contract — this address holds the upgrade authority.
How to do it:
Search for the Proxy Admin contract address you got in Step 1 on a block explorer.
Switch to the "Read Contract" tab, find the
owner()function, and call it.If the returned address is a burn address (0x000...000 or 0x...dead), the upgrade authority has been renounced — the contract truly cannot be upgraded anymore and is relatively safe.
If it returns an ordinary EOA wallet address (starts with 0x, not a contract), the upgrade right is in the hands of a single person, which is extremely risky. That address owner can call the Proxy Admin's
upgrade()orupgradeAndCall()function at any time and replace the logic contract with anything.If it returns a multi-signature wallet address (e.g., Gnosis Safe), the risk is relatively manageable but still exists — multiple signers must authorize an upgrade, so a single party cannot act maliciously.
When you're done: You've identified the Proxy Admin's owner type — burn address, individual wallet, or multi-sig.
Risk note: Even if the Proxy Admin owner is a multi-sig, if the signers are closely related or all belong to the project team, in theory they could still collude to perform a malicious upgrade. A multi-sig only raises the bar; it doesn't make it impossible.
Step 3: Review the Proxy Admin's activity history
What to do: Check whether the Proxy Admin contract has executed upgrade operations in the past.
How to do it:
On the block explorer's Proxy Admin contract page, switch to the "Transactions" or "Internal Transactions" tab.
Look for transactions that called the
upgrade()orupgradeAndCall()function. If such transactions exist and were recent, it means the project has performed upgrades before and the upgrade authority is indeed "active."If the Proxy Admin contract has never initiated any upgrade transaction since deployment and the owner was already transferred to a burn address, the upgrade capability has been abandoned.
When you're done: You can tell whether the Proxy Admin is "dormant" (never upgraded, or owner renounced) or "active" (owner still controls it, and there are past upgrade records).
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How to know you did it right?
After completing these three steps, you should be able to clearly answer the following three questions:
Does this project use a proxy contract?
If yes, who is the owner address of the Proxy Admin? Is it a burn address, a multi-sig, or an individual wallet?
Has that owner address performed any upgrade operations in the past?
If the answer is "the Proxy Admin owner is a burn address" or "the proxy contract was never activated" — the contract is basically safe and can't be maliciously upgraded. If the answer is "the Proxy Admin owner is still held in an individual wallet" — even if the business contract's ownership has been renounced, the project's upgrade backdoor remains wide open. Consider adding it to your high-risk list.
