Phantom is a self-custody software wallet that started on Solana and grew into a multichain wallet. It launched in 2021, built first for the Solana blockchain, and quickly became the most-used wallet for Solana. Over the following years it added support for more chains, so it now covers Solana alongside Ethereum, Polygon, Base, and Bitcoin, with Ethereum and Polygon arriving in May 2023 and Bitcoin in December 2023.
It is a hot wallet, running as a browser extension and as mobile apps. The extension works on Chrome, Brave, Firefox, and Edge; the iOS app arrived in January 2022 and the Android app in April 2022. Being a hot wallet, it is fast to set up and easy to use day to day, with the keys held on an internet-connected device.
Phantom is non-custodial, so you control your own private keys and the company cannot access your funds. As with any self-custody wallet, you back up a recovery phrase yourself and guard it; anyone who has it can move the funds, and losing it with no backup means losing access. The wallet leans on this point in its own messaging, telling users that they control their funds and that Phantom never has access.
The wallet is known for tying together the things active Solana users reach for most: holding and trading tokens, browsing and managing NFTs, swapping one token for another inside the app, staking SOL, and connecting to decentralized apps. Its Bitcoin support extends to Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens. Phantom also builds in safety prompts, showing previews of what a transaction will do, keeping phishing blocklists, and flagging transactions it judges to be malicious before you sign. The company has reported scanning large volumes of transactions and blocking wallet-draining attempts, which points to how much of the risk in a hot wallet comes from approving a bad transaction rather than from the wallet's own code.
Phantom suits people who are active on Solana and want one app that also reaches Ethereum, Base, Polygon, and Bitcoin. It is free to use, and because the list of supported chains and features keeps changing, check the official Phantom site for the current details. For larger holdings, the usual caution applies: a hot wallet is for the funds you move, and savings you mean to hold are better kept in cold storage.