Phantom

Phantom is a self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet and consumer finance platform that started life as the definitive Solana wallet and has since grown into one of the most broadly used multi-chain applications in crypto. Trusted by more than 20 million users and supporting nine blockchains, Phantom sits at the intersection of two product categories it helped define: the non-custodial wallet that genuinely feels consumer-grade, and the all-in-one financial app that lets users swap, stake, trade derivatives, and spend crypto with a debit card — all without handing custody to a third party.

Origins and Team

Phantom was founded in January 2021 by Brandon Millman (CEO), Francesco Agosti (CTO), and Chris Kalani (CPO), alongside a founding group of engineers, designers, and former startup founders. The early ambition was straightforward: make Solana feel as approachable as a fintech app for users who found existing wallets opaque and fragile. The beta launched with 40,000 testers, and the product quickly filled a vacuum in the then-nascent Solana ecosystem.

The first institutional backing arrived in July 2021 — a $9 million Series A from a16z, Variant, and Jump Capital — by which point Phantom had reached 3 million users. A $109 million Series B led by Paradigm followed in January 2022. In January 2025, with 15 million monthly active users on the platform, Phantom raised $150 million in a Series C co-led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm, with continued participation from a16z and Variant, valuing the company at $3 billion. Total funding stands at approximately $277 million across four rounds. The company now employs more than 100 people.

Multi-Chain Expansion

Phantom launched as a Solana-only product. It added Ethereum and Polygon during 2022, then extended to Bitcoin — including Ordinals and BRC-20 token support — in May 2024. The current list of supported networks spans nine chains: Solana, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Base, Polygon, Sui, Monad, HyperEVM, and Robinhood Chain. Assets across all networks are visible and manageable from a single unified interface, and cross-chain swaps are supported natively. The approach reflects the company's belief that users should not need to understand chain architecture to manage their money.

How the Wallet Works

Phantom is available as a browser extension (Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Edge) and as a mobile app for iOS and Android. The wallet is fully self-custodial: users hold their own private keys, and Phantom never has access to funds. Hardware wallet users can connect a Ledger device for cold-storage signing. The built-in dApp browser lets users interact with decentralized applications without leaving Phantom.

Account setup uses a standard seed phrase flow, and the interface keeps technical details — network fees, transaction simulation, token metadata — surfaced but unobtrusive. For each supported chain, users see balances, transaction history, and in-app access to staking, swapping, and NFT management without needing to visit external sites.

Swaps

Phantom's built-in DEX aggregator routes token swaps across decentralized exchanges on every supported chain, finding competitive prices across liquidity sources in a single transaction. The swap feature launched on Solana in June 2021 and hit $1 billion in cumulative volume within its first several months. By the time of the Series C announcement in January 2025, the platform was processing $20 billion in annual swap volume. In November and December 2024, Phantom's active traders, trading revenue, and trading volume collectively exceeded those of MetaMask and Coinbase Wallet combined.

Staking

On Solana, Phantom supports two staking paths. Native staking lets users delegate SOL to any validator on the network, earning rewards typically in the 7–9% annual range depending on validator performance and commission. Delegations are adjustable at any time.

Phantom Staked SOL (PSOL), launched in September 2025, adds a liquid staking option. PSOL is a transferable token that represents staked SOL and continues accruing rewards while remaining usable in DeFi applications — users avoid the unstaking delay that accompanies native delegation.

NFT Tools

Phantom's NFT interface is designed primarily for Solana but extends to Ethereum and other supported chains. The wallet supports all major NFT file formats and connects to leading marketplaces, allowing users to list and sell directly from within the app. Organization tools let users pin favorites, hide items they do not want prominently displayed, and burn spam NFTs to reclaim the SOL rent locked inside the token account. Automated spam detection reduces the volume of unsolicited or malicious NFTs surfaced in the wallet.

Phantom Cash and Financial Expansion

In September 2025, Phantom launched Phantom Cash: a Visa debit card issued through Lead Bank that lets users spend crypto at any merchant that accepts Visa. The card supports Apple Pay and Google Pay. The launch reflected a deliberate expansion beyond crypto-native use cases into everyday financial services. Phantom Cash is available to users 18 and older in supported jurisdictions.

Phantom Perps, introduced in July 2025, brought perpetual futures trading directly into the wallet. In a significant regulatory milestone, Phantom obtained CFTC no-action relief covering its derivatives offerings, extending legitimate access to regulated futures and event contracts. The trading suite also includes prediction markets, a desktop terminal with advanced order management, and Solana-specific P&L tracking that lets users see realized and unrealized gains across their on-chain activity.

Security

Phantom's security model is built around self-custody supplemented by real-time transaction analysis. Before a user confirms any transaction, Phantom's simulation layer previews the expected outcome — what assets will move, what permissions will be granted — and flags patterns associated with drainer contracts, phishing sites, and token approval exploits. This capability was significantly reinforced by the acquisition of Blowfish, a wallet security firm whose detection engine now runs in the background on every transaction Phantom processes. SimpleHash, acquired in February 2025, strengthens the accuracy of token and NFT metadata displayed in the interface, reducing the risk of misleading or spoofed asset information.

Acquisitions and Growth

Phantom has been acquisitive. Bitski was acquired in May 2024 to accelerate consumer adoption and expand infrastructure. Solsniper, a Solana token analysis and sniping tool, joined in August 2025, adding token discovery and real-time data capabilities. The Ventuals team was brought on board in June 2026. These acquisitions reflect a strategy of absorbing ecosystem tooling rather than building every capability from scratch.

Developer and AI Integration

For developers, Phantom offers SDKs for React, React Native, and framework-agnostic JavaScript, covering web and mobile use cases. In 2025 and 2026 the company extended its developer surface to AI agents via an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server. The server exposes thirteen tools across wallet and trading functions, allowing AI agents to send transactions, check balances, execute swaps, and rebalance portfolios programmatically across Solana, Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Sui.

Ecosystem Position

Phantom controls approximately 39% of the Solana wallet market by active users and holds $25 billion in total self-custody assets across all supported chains. The wallet has processed 850 million on-chain transactions and averages twelve opens per day per active user — a figure that speaks to deep daily engagement rather than occasional check-ins. Its 3.8 million registered usernames anchor a peer-to-peer payments layer the company views as a foundation for social financial discovery. As Solana's adoption has broadened into consumer payments, tokenized assets, and regulated financial products, Phantom has remained the most widely used entry point for users and one of the most significant distribution channels in the ecosystem.