Phantom, a crypto wallet for Solana blockchain users, will start supporting the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains in a public launch across browsers, iOS and Android on Monday, May 1, at 9 a.m. EST, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.
Support for the two new blockchains was originally slated for the first quarter of 2023, but was pushed back. The multichain integration will be available to its 3 million users, Brandon Millman, CEO and co-founder of Phantom, said to TechCrunch.
The new capabilities come more than a year after Phantom hit a $1.2 billion valuation on a $109 million funding round in January 2022. That round was led by Paradigm, and saw participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Jump Capital, Solana and other investors.
Support for Ethereum and Polygon will let Phantom wallet users transfer assets across blockchains and dApps like Uniswap and Aave as well as NFT marketplaces like Blur and OpenSea. Users can now also import existing assets from MetaMask, Solana or Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) wallets. “The Phantom multichain is now available everywhere that MetaMask is,” the company said.
The multichain support will open up Phantom to a broader pool of crypto users beyond the millions of users it currently has from the Solana ecosystem, given that wallet owners can trade, hold and interact across all three blockchains (opposed to just one).
“If you have a MetaMask, you can plug in your seed phrase to have everything under one roof,” Millman said. “MetaMask can only handle one seed phrase at a time, but you can manage multiple here.”
There are other multichain crypto wallets on the market like Pillar, which provides support for Ethereum, Polygon, Gnosis Chain, BNB Chain and others. But in general, most crypto wallets focus on providing services for single layer-1 blockchains, with Ethereum-focused wallets being the most common. For example, MetaMask allows users to hold and transfer Ethereum or any other ERC-20 token, which are derived from the Ethereum blockchain. However, the MetaMask team has said they see potential for a multichain world in the future.
Phantom is arguably one of the biggest Solana-based wallets, so its opening up to other blockchains speaks to the growing potential for a multichain world and the possibility that other big players (like MetaMask) may follow suit.
Phantom’s new capability could also let dApps and other projects interact with consumers in an easier way cross-chain.
“It’s all multichain; you can see Solana NFTs next to ETH NFTs,” Millman said. “They all show up in one place.”
The wallet also shows advanced metadata for NFTs such as current floor prices, sale prices and other factors within the application, he added. “We also have the ability to sell NFTs directly into marketplaces like Magic Eden and OpenSea and others.”
Phantom is also adding new safety features that hide spam sent to crypto wallets in an attempt to help prevent phishing, Millman shared. “The analogy is similar to email: sometimes spam emails slip through, but users can just mark it as spam, and over time it gets better and better at catching it.”
All in all, safety is one of the biggest areas Phantom is worried about, Millman noted. “If you go to a website, we give you a warning that you’re leaving Phantom, and if we have an understanding that a website is malicious, we preemptively block it.” Obviously, users can ignore the warnings, but Millman advises against doing so.
The wallet also simulates transactions before they’re approved so users can see what they’re sending and receiving — and if there’s any cause for concern there, too, Millman said.
“There are cases where you fall through all these protective layers and do get phished, but we have a customer support team that’s basically 24/7 and can try to get you help with exchanges, directory of local authorities or things like that to explore routes,” Millman said. “I think that’s a huge thing, because afterward, usually you don’t know what you can do.”
Update: This article was amended after publication to reflect that Phantom’s launch of the multichain support has been pushed to Monday, May 1. The previous version of this article stated the launch would happen on Wednesday, April 26.
Crypto wallet Phantom to release public multichain support for Ethereum and Polygon by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch
