Token approvals are standard in DeFI and are meant to protect you and your funds. When you’re prompted with an approval, you are being asked to provide permission for the application to access and/or move a specific amount (allowance) of a token in your wallet.

On Bebop, where tokens support free approvals out of the box, we allow you to manage those permissions for free. In other cases, you will be asked for token approval with network fees to be paid if it is your first attempt to trade a certain token. However, you will only need to sign an off-chain message to manage permissions for the same token after thanks to permit2 - this eliminates the need for you to spend unnecessary network fees over time.

Permit2 is a canonical contract used by the various top DeFi protocols. Once you grant approval on any of these protocols, you don’t have to pay on Bebop again, just provide a free signature to grant permission on Bebop.