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A Harris Alter case study,

Phantom took the risk MetaMask avoided and won the traders Ethereum priced out

MetaMask was the incumbent on Ethereum, where a trade could cost hundreds of dollars. Phantom picked the customer that priced out, the small retail trader, and won them on Solana, where no wallet served consumers.1,2,3

$3BValuation at the January 2025 Series C4
15MMonthly users in January 20255
$320MRevenue in 2025, per Forbes6
Phantom home page, 30 October 2026
phantom.com, read 30 October 2026

Phantom's next growth is the wallet people trust an agent with, and dollars in Brazil.

How it played out

  • One report puts AI agent wallets at 34% of Solana memecoin DEX volume by June 2026.7
  • AI trading agents on Solana lost over $40 million to memory poisoning in January 2026.8
  • Latin America is about 30% of KAST's business, and over 90% of Brazil's crypto flows are stablecoins.9,10

The next moves

  • Bring Phantom's agent wallet into the app, with spend limits, scanning and a loss guarantee.
  • Take Phantom Cash to Brazil against KAST, as phone-to-phone dollar transfers.
  • Ship a one-tap switch from MetaMask while its users post their complaints.
Phantom monthly users
Phantom monthly users
January 20222M+
January 20231M
January 20243.2M
January 202515M

About 1 million after FTX, 15 million by January 2025.5,11,12

Assumes January 2022 is Phantom's claim of more than 2 million; January 2023 is TechCrunch's 1 million baseline; January 2024 is TechCrunch's 3.2 million; January 2025 is Phantom's 15 million at its Series C

The gap

In 2021 MetaMask owned Ethereum, and Solana had no wallet built for ordinary users.

In September 2021 The Block called MetaMask the Ethereum leader with 10 million monthly users. Every Ethereum app asked users to connect MetaMask, so a rival had to beat the default inside every app at once. Brandon Millman, a former Twitter engineer who helped build 0x, left it in March 2021 with Chris Kalani and Francesco Agosti, and Forbes says they chose not to fight MetaMask head-on.1,24,25,26

Solana was open ground. Its first wallet, Solflare, launched in May 2020 as a simple web wallet, and Solana wallets before Phantom are described as developer tooling with no proper interface. The Block says the founders picked Solana for its lack of competition. In April Dunford's terms, the alternative was a developer tool, so Phantom only had to be the first wallet people enjoyed using.3,27,28

The bet

Phantom went all in on a young chain that went offline for 17 hours.

At the start of 2021 SOL was worth about $0.1 billion in total and Solana had about 50 projects. In September 2021 the network went offline for 17 hours, and an outage in June 2022 was its fifth that year. So Phantom could only ever be as reliable as the network under it, and every outage was a failure its users blamed on the wallet.29,30,31,32

In Dunford's terms, a small trader's competitive alternative in 2021 was MetaMask on Ethereum, where a trade could cost hundreds of dollars, the same fee at $1,000 as at $10,000. The incumbent had priced out the customer a consumer wallet needs most. Solana charged $0.00025, so Phantom positioned itself as the wallet for the trader Ethereum shut out, on the chain where small trades paid. A wallet earns when its users transact, so that customer was worth more on Solana, and by November 2021 Solana was the fifth-largest cryptocurrency at $70 billion.2,33,34

The bet paid fast, because everyone buying SOL needed somewhere to use it. The April 2021 beta drew 40,000 users and 70,000 sign-ups, by September Phantom was adding about 100,000 users a week, and @krugermacro told anyone puzzled by the rally to get a Phantom wallet (2,735 likes), which made Phantom the way into Solana.35,36,37,38

By January 2022 Phantom had more than 2 million monthly users and an iPhone app. In hindsight it was the obvious bet, a far cheaper chain with no consumer wallet, but in 2021 it meant trusting a network that kept going offline. The founders made it, and a16z, Paradigm and the Solana Foundation backed it.11,16,17,39,40

A post telling people to get a Phantom wallet to understand Solana
@krugermacro, 8 September 2021, 2,735 likes.38 @krugermacro on X 2021-09-08
Phantom teasing its iPhone app
@phantom, 25 November 2021, 11,480 likes.39 @phantom on X 2021-11-25

The product

Phantom won Solana on taste while MetaMask's design was what its users complained about.

Chris Kalani, Phantom's co-founder and product chief, came from Facebook's design team and founded a design tool, Wake, before 0x. He has said design was ingrained in starting Phantom, and Phantom described its first team as designers, engineers and former founders. So on a chain whose wallets were developer tools, a design-led team had the field to itself.3,41,42,43,44

Users noticed, which matters because a consumer wallet's users are its marketing. @krugermacro praised its UX as the best in 2021, Decrypt calls it an excellent choice for beginners with swaps built in, and in December 2023 a designer's library of app animations listed Phantom beside Wise and Shop (1,366 likes). The App Store rates it 4.8 from 64K ratings.38,45,46,47,48

MetaMask's design was the complaint. @DCinvestor told it to scrap its UX in December 2023 (902 likes), @waleswoosh called it objectively bad and moved to Phantom in February 2025 (1,050), and MetaMask announced its own UI overhaul that month. Its Chrome extension holds 2.1 out of 5. In Dunford's terms, taste was Phantom's unique attribute, worth most against an incumbent users found painful.49,50,51,52

A designer's post listing Phantom beside Wise and Shop
@felixleezd, 3 December 2023, 1,366 likes.47 @felixleezd on X 2023-12-03
A post telling MetaMask to scrap its UX
@DCinvestor, 16 December 2023, 902 likes.49 @DCinvestor on X 2023-12-16
A post calling MetaMask an objectively bad wallet
@waleswoosh, 6 February 2025, 1,050 likes.50 @waleswoosh on X 2025-02-06

Who it is for

Phantom is built for the phone trader who wants a new token the hour it launches.

On 29 December 2024 Phantom posted that men in their early 20s should download it and delete every other app if they had to (18,249 likes). The post names the customer who cares most, young, on a phone and trading, which means Phantom chose to win one customer completely before serving everyone. Its App Store name, Phantom: Trading Wallet, says the same.48,53

In Dunford's terms, that trader's alternatives are an exchange such as Coinbase, a trading terminal or another wallet. Many Solana memecoins could not be traded on Coinbase. Millman tied Solana's pull to speed and low cost on mobile, so Phantom's edge for this trader is the newest coins on a phone, in the wallet that already holds the money.54,55

The value is speed: a coin found on X can be bought in the app that holds the money. The App Store name shows Phantom chose trading wallet as its category, a category any app can now enter.48

Phantom telling men in their early 20s to download it
@phantom, 29 December 2024, 18,249 likes.53 @phantom on X 2024-12-29

The backers

Big-name backers told users, apps and engineers that Phantom would still be here.

a16z led Phantom's first round in July 2021 with the Solana Foundation in it, and Paradigm and Sequoia led the next two, the last at $3 billion in January 2025. That lineup was a bullish signal, because a wallet asks strangers to trust it with their money, and research back to Megginson and Weiss in 1991 finds a reputable VC certifies a company to outsiders. So users read safety, apps read a reason to integrate Phantom first, engineers read a reason to join, and the chain Phantom bet on was betting on it too.4,16,17,40,56

The test

FTX's collapse cut SOL 92% in 2022, and Phantom answered by entering MetaMask's market.

Alameda Research, Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm, took part in Solana's token sale, and FTX's collapse in November 2022 hit Solana hard. More than $700 million left Solana apps, and by 30 November SOL was down 92% for the year. Days earlier Meta had announced that Instagram users could connect Phantom to show Solana NFTs (12,934 likes), so Phantom entered the crash with Instagram as a partner.57,58,59,60,61

On 29 November 2022 Phantom announced Ethereum and Polygon support with more than 3 million active users, and The Block called it a potential threat to MetaMask. Phantom kept Solana and hedged, entering MetaMask's home market with a tested product. Monthly users still fell to about 1 million by January 2023, so the hedge bought time rather than growth.11,12,62,63,64

Assumes January 2023 is the year-earlier baseline in TechCrunch's January 2024 report

Meta announcing Phantom support on Instagram and Facebook
@Meta, 2 November 2022, 12,934 likes.61 @Meta on X 2022-11-02

The payoff

Solana's memecoin boom took Phantom from 1 million to 15 million monthly users in two years.

Phantom grew from about 1 million monthly users in January 2023 to 3.2 million a year later and 15 million by January 2025. Memecoins did most of it. Solana DEX volume hit $109.8 billion in November 2024, nearly double Ethereum's, and many of those coins could not be traded on Coinbase, so for a memecoin trader the wallet was the exchange.5,12,54,65,66

Assumes January 2023 is the year-earlier baseline in TechCrunch's January 2024 report

On 20 November 2024 Phantom reached ninth among free US iPhone apps, up from 377th eight days earlier, while MetaMask had not reached the top 500 that year. @frankdegods wrote that the market top would come when Phantom was first on the App Store (2,835 likes). That rank mattered because the App Store is where people who have never heard of Solana find a wallet, so Phantom was now acquiring users from outside crypto.54,67,68

A post saying the market top comes when Phantom is first on the App Store
@frankdegods, 14 November 2024, 2,835 likes.68 @frankdegods on X 2024-11-14
Phantom replying about being top of the App Store
@phantom, 20 November 2024, 1,766 likes.69 @phantom on X 2024-11-20

How it grew

Phantom grew through other people's launches and its own voice, and paid for marketing late.

Phantom told Forbes its growth was organic and tied to Solana, because its distribution was other people's launches. When Monad opened its testnet, step one was to download Phantom (15,204 likes). So every chain or app that names a wallet in its launch does Phantom's acquisition for free, which keeps CAC near zero, the way MetaMask was built on Ethereum.70,71

The brand did the rest. Phantom relaunched its identity in June 2023 with the design studio Bakken & Baeck and a custom typeface from F37 Foundry, at about 3 million users. Zac Glover, who left in April 2025, called it the best wallet and brand in crypto (3,290 likes). That matters because a wallet sells trust, so a brand that looks considered reads as safe.72,73

Referrals are paid out of revenue. A referred user gets a rebate on the trading fees they pay and the referrer gets a share of them, both credited to Phantom Cash, so Phantom pays for a new user only after the user trades, and CAC never runs ahead of revenue.74,75

Monad telling testnet users to download Phantom
@monad, 17 December 2024, 15,204 likes.71 @monad on X 2024-12-17
A former Phantom employee calling it the best wallet and brand in crypto
@zacglover, 8 April 2025, 3,290 likes.73 @zacglover on X 2025-04-08

The ground shifts

On phones, apps build the wallet in, and the wallet that connects them matters less.

Consumers now live on their phones, about 3.6 hours a day in apps in 2025 per Sensor Tower. a16z counted 34.4 million monthly mobile wallet users on average in 2025, up from 27.9 million, growing fastest in emerging markets. On desktop every app reached users through a browser extension, so the extension wallet sat at the door. On a phone each app is its own download.76,77,78

So apps build the wallet in. Pump.fun's app creates a Solana wallet at signup through Privy, Jupiter Mobile is Jupiter's own wallet, and Fomo raised $75 million at $550 million in June 2026 while onboarding about 3,500 users a day. Each owns its user from the first screen.79,80,81,82,83

Privy sells that door, which means the app owns the user's first click. Stripe agreed to buy it in June 2025 with 75 million accounts, it powers Pump.fun and Hyperliquid, and Pump.fun users sign up with just an email. Fireblocks is buying Dynamic, with more than 50 million accounts. As @realitywarp wrote in July 2025, new users will not download Phantom to connect to other apps (483 likes).84,85,86,87,88

Phantom answered with features. Its perps run through Hyperliquid's builder codes, which let any app take up to 0.1% on trades it routes, and Phantom leads more than 100 builders, MetaMask among them. It was brave to meet traders where they went, and it is parity any app on Hyperliquid's terms can ship. Phantom holds 39.4% of Solana wallet activity on Dune data, so it still leads, but not by the distance it once did.89,90,91,92,93

Its real answer is Phantom Connect, launched free on 17 December 2025, which gives apps embedded wallets with Google or Apple login and users one account across apps. In Hormozi's terms Phantom can sell apps a lower CAC, because the user already has an account, and in Dunford's terms that user base is what Privy lacks. The awkward part is Stripe, which owns Privy and runs Phantom's stablecoin through Bridge.84,94,95,96

The next user may not be a person. One analytics report, unnamed by the article citing it, puts AI agent wallets at 34% of Solana memecoin DEX volume by June 2026. @SolSt1ne posted that his Grok bot traded $3,000 into $12,500 overnight (2,304 likes), and @ashen_one showed how to give an agent a Phantom wallet (1,891). The tools are changing the user, and the users are changing what a wallet has to do, which means a wallet now has to serve software as well as people.7,97,98

Phantom already gives each agent its own isolated wallet through an MCP server, but as a developer tool. MetaMask's Agent Wallet, in early access since June 2026, makes every agent trade follow user-set rules such as daily limits. Users have reason to worry. AI trading agents on Solana lost over $40 million to memory poisoning in January 2026, and the Grok wallet lost about $150,000 in May. So users will pick the agent wallet they trust to refuse a bad trade.8,99,100,101,102

A post saying new users will not download Phantom to connect to other apps
@realitywarp, 9 July 2025, 483 likes.88 @realitywarp on X 2025-07-09
A post about a Grok bot trading memecoins overnight
@SolSt1ne, 24 October 2026, 2,304 likes.97 @SolSt1ne on X 2026-10-24
A video guide to giving an AI agent a Phantom wallet
@ashen_one, 30 January 2026, 1,891 likes.98 @ashen_one on X 2026-01-30

Wallets become banks

Stablecoin neobanks now sell the dollar account and card that wallets are heading toward.

The line between a wallet and a crypto bank is thinning. KAST, a stablecoin neobank, says it has over 1 million users and about $5 billion of annualised volume, and raised $80 million at $600 million. EtherFi lets card users borrow against their portfolio, and MetaMask launched its card in 49 US states in February 2026. Each sells a dollar account with a card, which is where Phantom Cash is heading.103,104,105,106,107

Phantom moved early. CASH passed $100 million in circulation within two months of its September 2025 launch, the card reached all US users in spring 2026, and Millman says Phantom aims to be a consumer finance platform. The prize is large and steady, because in the year to October 2025 a16z counted $46 trillion of stablecoin volume, largely uncorrelated with crypto trading.15,108,109,110,111

Custody is the weak point. Attackers stole at least $7 million from Trust Wallet extension users in December 2025, a 2025 lawsuit alleges a hacker pulled a private key from Phantom's extension, and Microsoft found malware aimed at 20 wallet extensions, Phantom among them (10,293 likes). Consensys cited that 35% of users never back up their seed phrase. Whether most people will ever hold their own keys is still open, which is the opening a neobank that holds them sells into.112,113,114,115

In Dunford's terms, a dollar account's alternatives are a bank, an exchange or KAST, and Phantom's unique attribute is that 15 million monthly users already keep their crypto in it. In Hormozi's terms, it raises lifetime value with a reason to open the app that does not depend on trading, the churn Phantom's fees show.5,18,103

The money is thinner than it looks, because Wu Blockchain's account of Infini's exit says crypto cards are low-margin and need large volumes and idle deposits to pay, and the GENIUS Act bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on holdings, though a separate platform's rewards are not automatically caught.116,117,118

Cointelegraph reporting malware that targets 20 wallet extensions
@Cointelegraph, 18 March 2025, 10,293 likes.114 @Cointelegraph on X 2025-03-18

Phantom against its rivals

Phantom now competes with MetaMask on agents, Jupiter on trading and KAST on dollars.

PhantomJupiterMetaMaskKAST
What it isSelf-custody wallet and trading app48Solana trading app with its own wallet81Wallet, independent of Consensys since September 2026137Stablecoin neobank with a card103,139
Scale15M monthly users, January 20255No user count found135100M+ downloads on its own count138Over 1M users, about $5B annualised volume103
For AI agentsAn isolated wallet per agent, via MCP99None found81Agent Wallet with user-set spend rules100,101None found103
Newest betKalshi markets for US users, October 2026134Redesigned mobile app, May 2026136Agent Wallet in early access, June 2026100$80M raised at a $600M valuation104

What it earns

$559.08M of Phantom's $598.01M lifetime fees came from Solana, and its revenue follows Solana's cycle.

DefiLlama shows $559.08M of Phantom's $598.01M cumulative fees coming from Solana, about 93%. On DefiLlama data cited by CoinLaw, revenue peaked at $173.84M in the first quarter of 2025. On 30 October 2026 Phantom's 30-day fees were $6.27M, about $19M a quarter at that pace, so roughly nine in every ten dollars Phantom has earned depended on one chain.18,119,120

Assumes 559.08 divided by 598.01 is about 93%; $6.27M times 3 is about $19M

The market drove the fall, so Phantom's revenue fell with Solana's, whatever it shipped. Solana app revenue fell 97% from its January 2025 peak by March, daily fees fell from 33,000 SOL in January 2026 to about 5,300 in June, and SOL traded near $81.40 by late May 2026. The Block puts part of it down to traders moving from memecoins into perps.121,122,123,124

In Hormozi's terms, lifetime value is fee per trade times trades times how long a user stays. Phantom's fee held while trades fell. Forbes's figures give about $14.55 of 2025 revenue per user across 22 million, much of it from a few months of memecoin trading. In December 2025 @antivax_max said he had not seen a Phantom screenshot in a long time (8,717 likes).6,125

Assumes 320 divided by 22 is about 14.55

Phantom followed the trades into perpetual futures, where it earns more than any other Hyperliquid builder, $20.63M.92

Where Phantom's lifetime fees came from
Where Phantom's lifetime fees came from
On Solana$559.08M
Every other chain$38.93M

Solana produced $559.08M of $598.01M, about 93%.18,119

Assumes 559.08 divided by 598.01 is about 93%; 598.01 minus 559.08 is 38.93; DefiLlama cumulative fees read on 30 October 2026

Phantom revenue by year
Phantom revenue by year
Full year 2024$200M
Full year 2025$320M

Revenue rose 60% to $320 million in 2025, per Forbes.6

Assumes Forbes figures; DefiLlama via CoinLaw gives $189.15 million for 2024 and $325.89 million for 2025

A post saying Phantom screenshots have disappeared
@antivax_max, 18 December 2025, 8,717 likes.125 @antivax_max on X 2025-12-18

What keeps a user

Phantom holds users with habit, safety tools and no token, and its redesign tested all three.

The cheapest retention is habit. @sol_nxxn wrote in December 2025 that nearly everyone he met used Phantom because they downloaded it once and never looked elsewhere, and that this was changing as rivals fixed their products (620 likes). Habit holds a user until a rival gives them a reason to look.126

Safety is the stronger lever. Every Phantom wallet previews transactions with Blowfish, which Phantom incubated and later bought, and Phantom reports more than 1,000 phishing site takedowns. One bad signature can empty a wallet, so every loss Phantom prevents gives a user a reason to stay.127,128,129,130

Phantom has no token and said in January 2025 it had no plans for one. Users who stay are not waiting on an airdrop, so no token launch can set off an exit.23

The September 2026 redesign tested the habit. @TylerDurden said Phantom went from the best wallet in crypto to the worst app he had opened (1,735 likes), @ramonos missed the old interface (1,261), and @NotSoEasyMoney asked why token sales now go to Phantom's stablecoin (1,190). Each complaint is about finding something that used to be obvious, which is how habit breaks, because a user who has to think again can pick a rival.131,132,133

A post saying Phantom users never looked elsewhere, until now
@sol_nxxn, 27 December 2025, 620 likes.126 @sol_nxxn on X 2025-12-27
A post calling the redesigned Phantom the worst app
@TylerDurden, 3 September 2026, 1,735 likes.131 @TylerDurden on X 2026-09-03
A post missing Phantom's old interface
@ramonos, 13 September 2026, 1,261 likes.132 @ramonos on X 2026-09-13
A post listing problems with the redesigned Phantom
@NotSoEasyMoney, 20 September 2026, 1,190 likes.133 @NotSoEasyMoney on X 2026-09-20

Where Phantom is exposed

3 places the growth story is thin

MetaMask put agent rules in users' hands while Phantom's agent wallet is a developer tool.

Phantom

Phantom's MCP server gives each agent its own isolated wallet, which starts empty and is set up through a developer sign-in.99,140,141

MetaMask

MetaMask's Agent Wallet, in early access since June 2026, makes every agent trade follow user-set rules such as daily limits and allow lists, including perps on Hyperliquid.100,101,142

AI trading agents on Solana lost over $40 million to memory poisoning in January 2026, so the wallet users trust with an agent wins the agent's trades.8

Bring the agent wallet into the app with spend limits, Blowfish scanning on every agent trade and a loss guarantee as risk reversal.

First step, week 1 Put the agent wallet in the app for a test group, behind a spend limit.

KAST built about 30% of its business in Latin America while Phantom Cash serves the US.

Phantom

CASH passed $100 million in circulation in two months, but the Phantom Cash card is broadly available to verified US users, and Bridge says Phantom plans to expand it globally.108,143,144

KAST

Latin America is roughly 30% of KAST's business, with Brazil a strong market, and KAST cut its FX fee in Argentina to 0% in July 2026.9,145

Officials say over 90% of Brazil's crypto flows are stablecoins, and Lemon serves nearly 5 million people across the region, so the dollar account there is being won now.10,146

Launch Phantom Cash in Brazil as phone-to-phone dollar transfers, so each transfer recruits the next user at almost no CAC.

First step, week 3 Map Brazil's licensing path, where stablecoin payments count as foreign exchange.

MetaMask counts 100 million downloads, and its users are posting why they want to leave.

Phantom

Phantom has supported Ethereum since its November 2022 expansion, so a MetaMask user's assets can live in Phantom.62,63

MetaMask

MetaMask counts more than 100 million downloads against a peak of 31.7 million monthly users, and became independent of Consensys in September 2026.137,138,147

@waleswoosh called MetaMask objectively bad and moved to Phantom in February 2025 (1,050 likes), so switching is happening one user at a time.50

Ship a one-tap switch that brings a MetaMask wallet into Phantom in one step.

First step, week 2 Count the steps a MetaMask user takes to move to Phantom today, then cut them to one.

Phantom’s next 30 days

Phantom spends 30 days making its wallet the one people trust an agent with.

  1. Day 1

    Count the users already running agents through Phantom's MCP server, and what they trade

    Agent baseline

    Phantom
  2. Week 1

    Put the agent wallet in the app for a test group, with spend limits and scanning on every agent trade

    Agent wallets live for testers

    Phantom
  3. Week 2

    Cut the move from MetaMask to Phantom to one step and test it

    One-tap switch in testing

    Phantom
  4. Week 3

    Map Brazil's licensing path for stablecoin transfers with Bridge

    A route to launch in Brazil

    Phantom
  5. Week 4

    Publish the agent loss guarantee and its cap, then open the agent wallet to all users

    Share of users with a funded agent

    Phantom

Phantom knows whether users will trust it with an agent, and has a route to Brazil and a MetaMask switch.

What would make us wrong

Thin agent demand, costly agent attacks or Brazil's rules could make this read wrong.

  • Consumers may not want agents spending yet, since 17% of US shoppers had used one and Gartner expects over 40% of agentic AI projects to be cancelled by 2027.148,149

    Test: Track how many testers fund an agent and still have it funded after 30 days.

  • Agent attacks could make the guarantee expensive, as AI trading agents on Solana lost over $40 million in January 2026.8

    Test: Price the guarantee against the testers' losses before setting its cap.

  • Brazil treats stablecoin payments as foreign exchange and requires crypto firms to file for authorisation by 30 October 2026.150,151

    Test: Get a legal read on whether Phantom Cash transfers need their own licence or can run on a partner's.

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Sources (151)
  1. Phantom's founders left 0x in March 2021 to build Phantom. CEO Brandon Millman helped build 0x, a decentralized-exchange infrastructure project. The same piece calls MetaMask the Ethereum leader with 10 million monthly active users and notes Phantom was not yet earning swap fees. (Kalani and Agosti were not named in the pages I opened.) theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  2. The Motley Fool (30 December 2021) said Solana had an average transaction cost of $0.00025, while Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions can cost hundreds of dollars. fool.com (read 2026-10-30)
  3. Before Phantom, Solana wallets were described as developer tooling with no proper user interface. defjourney.beehiiv.com (read 2026-10-30)
  4. Phantom raised a $150 million Series C at a $3 billion valuation, led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm with a16z and Variant, announced 16 January 2025. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  5. At the January 2025 round Phantom said it had 15 million monthly active users and $25 billion in self-custody assets. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  6. Forbes (25 Feb 2026): Phantom has 22 million users, and 2025 revenue rose 60% to $320 million from $200 million. forbes.co (read 2026-10-30)
  7. AI agent wallets rose from 8% in March 2026 to 34% of daily Solana memecoin DEX volume by June 2026, per one analytics report, which the article does not name. en.coin-turk.com (read 2026-10-30)
  8. Memory poisoning attacks on Solana AI trading agents caused over $40 million in losses in January 2026, per one security write-up; the same page later gives about $45 million. spark.money (read 2026-10-30)
  9. In that podcast Latin America is put at roughly 30% of KAST's global business, with Brazil a strong market. audible.com (read 2026-10-29)
  10. Chainalysis cites officials saying over 90% of Brazilian crypto flows are now stablecoin-related. chainalysis.com (read 2026-10-30)
  11. By January 2022, six months after launch, Phantom claimed more than 2 million monthly active users. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  12. TechCrunch reported Phantom at 3.2 million monthly active users in January 2024, up 220% from 1 million a year earlier. techcrunch.com (read 2026-10-30)
  13. On 8 July 2025 Phantom launched perpetual futures trading via Hyperliquid's API, starting with EU users, up to 40x leverage, non-custodial. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  14. On 12 December 2025 Phantom launched Phantom Prediction Markets with Kalshi, paid in Solana tokens or the CASH stablecoin, with no new account needed. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  15. Per Stripe's case study, Phantom became the first business to launch a stablecoin (CASH) on Bridge's Open Issuance platform in September 2025, and rolled the debit card out to all users in spring 2026. stripe.com (read 2026-10-30)
  16. Phantom raised a $9 million Series A in July 2021, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). decrypt.co (read 2026-10-30)
  17. Phantom raised a $109 million Series B led by Paradigm on 31 January 2022, valuing it at $1.2 billion, and launched its iOS app the same day. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  18. DefiLlama's combined Phantom fees page shows 30-day fees of $6.27m and cumulative fees of $598.01m, about 1.8x MetaMask's 30-day fees on the same day. defillama.com (read 2026-10-30)
  19. @phantom had 953.8K Followers on X on 30 October 2026. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  20. @JupiterExchange had 615.4K Followers on X on 30 October 2026. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  21. @Backpack had 325.2K Followers on X on 30 October 2026. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  22. @solflare had 262.3K Followers on X on 30 October 2026. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  23. On 3 January 2025 Phantom said it had no plans for a token, after airdrop speculation around its new social features. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  24. Phantom Wallet was co-founded by CEO Brandon Millman, CPO Chris Kalani and CTO Francesco Agosti. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  25. Brandon Millman was previously a senior engineer at Twitter and helped build the decentralised exchange 0x. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  26. Forbes says Phantom's founders chose not to compete head-on with MetaMask and rode Solana's 2024 memecoin boom. forbes.co (read 2026-10-30)
  27. Solflare launched its first version, a simple web wallet described as the first wallet on Solana, in May 2020. defjourney.beehiiv.com (read 2026-10-30)
  28. The Block says Phantom's founders chose Solana as their first network because there was less competition in its ecosystem. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  29. At the start of 2021, SOL had a total market capitalisation of only about $0.1 billion, placing it low on the crypto leaderboard. upside.vn (read 2026-10-30)
  30. Solana had about 50 projects in early 2021 and a TVL of $150 million in April 2021. The same article later says TVL broke $1.4B, so the figures conflict. upside.vn (read 2026-10-30)
  31. Solana's network was offline for 17 hours on 14 September 2021 after a flood of bot transactions. jumpcrypto.com (read 2026-10-30)
  32. SiliconANGLE counted the June 2022 outage as the fifth Solana outage of 2022. siliconangle.com (read 2026-10-30)
  33. DappRadar (8 April 2021) walked through a typical small purchase: $1,000 of ETH bought into MetaMask, then swapped on Uniswap, cost $105 in fees, and the gas fee is the same whether the user moves $1,000 or $10,000, which it says is pricing out smaller investors. dappradar.com (read 2026-10-30)
  34. CoinDesk (4 November 2021) reported Ethereum's average transaction fee had more than doubled to $56 in two weeks, per Glassnode, while Solana became the fifth-largest cryptocurrency at a $70 billion market capitalisation. finance.yahoo.com (read 2026-10-30)
  35. The Block says Phantom's beta launched in April 2021. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  36. Phantom claimed 40,000 users and 70,000 sign-ups during its beta launch. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  37. In September 2021 Millman said Phantom was adding about 100,000 new users per week and was about to reach 500,000 active users. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  38. @krugermacro posted about Phantom on 8 September 2021; the post has 2,735 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  39. @phantom posted about Phantom on 25 November 2021; the post has 11,480 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  40. The Series A also had participation from Variant Fund, Jump Capital, DeFi Alliance and the Solana Foundation, per The Block. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  41. Chris Kalani, Phantom's co-founder and Chief Product Officer, began his career at Jive Software, then worked at agencies building products for Microsoft and Nike, and joined Facebook's design team on growth, graph search and Messenger. designerfounders.substack.com (read 2026-10-30)
  42. Chris Kalani founded Wake, a design collaboration tool, then spent about three years at crypto startup 0x, where he met the people who became his Phantom co-founders. designerfounders.substack.com (read 2026-10-30)
  43. Kalani has said design was ingrained in the decision to start Phantom. designerfounders.substack.com (read 2026-10-30)
  44. Phantom described its team in its own Series A post as designers, engineers and former founders. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  45. Decrypt's guide lists Phantom's built-in swap as letting users trade tokens without an external exchange, and calls the interface easy to use, with built-in swaps and staking. decrypt.co (read 2026-10-30)
  46. Decrypt's guide calls Phantom an excellent choice of crypto wallet for beginners. It gives no date for when the NFT view or swaps first shipped. decrypt.co (read 2026-10-30)
  47. @felixleezd posted about Phantom on 3 December 2023; the post has 1,366 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  48. Phantom on the US App Store: 4.8 out of 5 from 64K ratings; the app is named 'Phantom: Trading Wallet'. apps.apple.com (read 2026-10-30)
  49. @DCinvestor posted about MetaMask on 16 December 2023; the post has 902 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  50. @waleswoosh posted about MetaMask on 6 February 2025; the post has 1,050 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  51. @MetaMask posted about MetaMask on 28 February 2025; the post has 6,612 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  52. MetaMask's Chrome extension listing shows 12,000,000 users, a 2.1 out of 5 rating from 5.9K ratings, version 13.54.0, updated 27 Oct 2026. chromewebstore.google.com (read 2026-10-30)
  53. @phantom posted about Phantom on 29 December 2024; the post has 18,249 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  54. Evidence for Phantom beating MetaMask on mobile: in mid-2024 The Block found Phantom climbing the US App Store charts on the Solana memecoin boom while MetaMask had not reached the top 500. It also said many niche Solana memecoins could not be traded on an exchange like Coinbase. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  55. In May 2024 Millman tied Solana's pull to mobile-friendly speed and low cost and said Phantom was going very deep with Solana. solanacompass.com (read 2026-10-30)
  56. Megginson and Weiss (1991) found venture capital backing lowers IPO initial returns and gross spreads, which they read as certification. ideas.repec.org (read 2026-10-30)
  57. Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research was involved in Solana's initial coin offering, which tied Solana to the FTX collapse. 247wallst.com (read 2026-10-30)
  58. Solana's total value locked fell 32.4% in 24 hours on 10 November 2022, as FTX news spread through the crypto ecosystem. cointelegraph.com (read 2026-10-30)
  59. More than $700 million left Solana-based applications after FTX, a 70% drop from $1 billion of TVL on 2 November 2022. coindesk.com (read 2026-10-30)
  60. SOL fell 92% year-to-date by 30 November 2022, after the FTX collapse. 247wallst.com (read 2026-10-30)
  61. @Meta posted about Phantom on 2 November 2022; the post has 12,934 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  62. On 29 November 2022 Phantom announced expansion to Ethereum and Polygon, with more than 3 million active users; The Block framed it as a potential threat to MetaMask. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  63. On 29 November 2022, Phantom announced it was expanding to Ethereum and Polygon. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  64. Brandon Millman said the market was ready for a different wallet when Phantom went multichain. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  65. Solana DEX volume hit a record $109.8 billion in November 2024, nearly double Ethereum's $55.3 billion per DeFiLlama. forklog.com (read 2026-10-30)
  66. The Solana memecoin market was worth a combined $25 billion at its December 2024 peak, and SOL's price fell as that excitement faded. 247wallst.com (read 2026-10-30)
  67. On 20 November 2024 Phantom hit ninth among free iPhone apps in the US, its first top-10 finish, and second among free utility apps, ahead of WhatsApp and Instagram. (It had ranked 377th on 12 November.) theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  68. @frankdegods posted about Phantom on 14 November 2024; the post has 2,835 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  69. @phantom posted about Phantom on 20 November 2024; the post has 1,766 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  70. Forbes (25 Feb 2026) reports Phantom says its growth was organic, tied to Solana, and that it only recently started paid marketing after a large venture round. forbes.co (read 2026-10-30)
  71. @monad posted about Phantom on 17 December 2024; the post has 15,204 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  72. Phantom announced its brand identity relaunch on 21 June 2023, led by design studio Bakken & Baeck, with a custom typeface from F37 Foundry, at about 3 million users. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  73. @zacglover posted about Phantom on 8 April 2025; the post has 3,290 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  74. Phantom's own referral terms (updated 19 Aug 2026) define two payouts: a rebate to the new user and a fee share to the referrer, based on trading fees. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  75. Phantom's referee rebate is a percentage of the trading fees the new user pays, credited to their Phantom Cash balance. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  76. Sensor Tower puts average time at roughly 3.6 hours per day per mobile user. The report has no Gen Z or younger-user findings on the page opened. sensortower.com (read 2026-10-30)
  77. a16z crypto put monthly active mobile wallet users at a 2025 average of 34.4 million, up 23% from a 2024 average of 27.9 million (article dated 20 June 2025). a16zfrontier.com (read 2026-10-30)
  78. a16z says mobile wallet usage is growing fastest in emerging markets, with Argentina up 16x in crypto mobile wallet usage over three years. The report does not discuss a shift from desktop to mobile in rich markets. a16z.news (read 2026-10-30)
  79. Pump.fun unveiled a mobile app for iOS and Android in February 2025 that lets users buy, sell and create coins from a phone. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  80. Signing up to the Pump.fun app automatically creates a Solana wallet through Privy's wallet infrastructure, so the user does not need an outside wallet to start. decrypt.co (read 2026-10-30)
  81. Jupiter's docs describe Jupiter Mobile as a Solana-native wallet built by Jupiter, so it is the app's own wallet, not Phantom. It runs on iOS 18 or later and Android 9 or later, and Jupiter Mobile is the exclusive wallet provider for Play Solana. docs.jup.ag (read 2026-10-30)
  82. Fomo raised $75 million in a Series B led by Index Ventures at a $550 million valuation, announced in June 2026. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  83. Fomo listed perpetual futures in June 2026 and was onboarding about 3,500 new users per day. The article does not say whether users need an outside wallet. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  84. Stripe agreed to acquire embedded-wallet provider Privy on 11 June 2025; terms were not disclosed. decrypt.co (read 2026-10-30)
  85. Privy said it supported more than 75 million accounts and 1,000 developer teams at acquisition; customers included Pump.fun, Hyperliquid and OpenSea. decrypt.co (read 2026-10-30)
  86. Privy, which supplies Pump.fun's embedded wallets, says Pump.fun onboards users with just an email address. privy.io (read 2026-10-30)
  87. Fireblocks is buying Dynamic, a developer platform for embedded wallets that powers more than 50 million on-chain accounts. Customers named include Kraken, Zerohash, Magic Eden, Lighter and Ondo Finance. pulse2.com (read 2026-10-30)
  88. @realitywarp posted about Phantom on 9 July 2025; the post has 483 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  89. Hyperliquid builder codes let a builder (an app built on Hyperliquid, not a block builder) receive a fee on fills it sends on a user's behalf. hyperliquid.gitbook.io (read 2026-10-30)
  90. Builder fees can be at most 0.1% on perps and 1% on spot. hyperliquid.gitbook.io (read 2026-10-30)
  91. Phantom has earned $20,630,022 in cumulative builder fee revenue from Hyperliquid, placing it first among more than 100 builder teams. solanacompass.com (read 2026-10-30)
  92. CoinGecko research (data 25 May 2026): Phantom is Hyperliquid's top builder with $20.63m cumulative revenue; MetaMask is #4 with $6.51m and charges 0.1%, the highest builder fee in the top 10. coingecko.com (read 2026-10-30)
  93. Dune data gives Phantom 39.4% of Solana wallet activity. datawallet.com (read 2026-10-30)
  94. Phantom announced the free Phantom Connect SDK on 17 December 2025, for unified account access across apps. kucoin.com (read 2026-10-30)
  95. Phantom Connect embedded wallets are created through Google or Apple social login, so the user does not need a browser extension. docs.phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  96. Bridge oversees CASH issuance and reserves, and Phantom runs adoption and use cases. thepaypers.com (read 2026-10-30)
  97. @SolSt1ne posted about Phantom on 24 October 2026; the post has 2,304 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  98. @ashen_one posted about Phantom on 30 January 2026; the post has 1,891 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  99. Phantom's MCP server gives each agent its own wallet, isolated from the user's personal Phantom wallet. docs.phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  100. MetaMask's Agent Wallet is a non-custodial wallet for AI agents, rolling out in limited early access with general availability planned for summer 2026. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  101. Every MetaMask Agent Wallet transaction must follow user-set rules, including daily spend limits and allow lists. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  102. The Grok wallet drain in May 2026 was described as the most dramatic real-world AI wallet exploit to date, with roughly $150,000 lost. spark.money (read 2026-10-30)
  103. KAST says it has over 1 million users and about 5 billion dollars in annualised transaction volume. blockhead.co (read 2026-10-30)
  104. KAST's 80 million dollar raise was made at a 600 million dollar valuation, according to people familiar with the matter. blockhead.co (read 2026-10-30)
  105. EtherFi's card accounts connect to an integrated Aave market on Optimism, so users can borrow against their entire portfolio. alearesearch.io (read 2026-10-29)
  106. EtherFi says its cashback is funded by revenue from card spending, referrals, borrowing and swaps. alearesearch.io (read 2026-10-29)
  107. MetaMask launched its Mastercard spending card across 49 US states on 26 February 2026. Vermont is the only state excluded. spendnode.io (read 2026-10-30)
  108. Phantom's CASH stablecoin passed 100 million dollars in circulation within two months of its 30 September 2025 launch, per ChainCatcher. kucoin.com (read 2026-10-30)
  109. Brandon Millman said in an August 2025 Lightspeed interview that Phantom aims to become a next-generation consumer finance platform. solanacompass.com (read 2026-10-30)
  110. a16z says stablecoins processed 46 trillion dollars of transaction volume in the year to Oct 2025, up 106 percent. a16z.news (read 2026-10-30)
  111. a16z says stablecoin activity was largely uncorrelated with broader crypto trading volume. a16z.news (read 2026-10-30)
  112. Browser extension v2.68 was compromised on 24 December 2025; at least $7M was stolen in a supply chain attack. bleepingcomputer.com (read 2026-10-30)
  113. The lawsuit alleges a hacker extracted a plaintiff's private key from Phantom's browser extension memory, and that Phantom allegedly knew of the flaw but never fixed or disclosed it. crypto.news (read 2026-10-30)
  114. @Cointelegraph posted about Phantom on 18 March 2025; the post has 10,293 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  115. Consensys cited a data point that 35% of users do not back up their seed phrases as the reason for the Web3Auth deal (embedded, social-login wallets). consensys.com (read 2026-10-30)
  116. Crypto card providers are low-margin products that need large transaction volumes and idle capital deposits to be profitable, per Wu Blockchain's account of Infini's exit. wublock.substack.com (read 2026-10-30)
  117. Under the GENIUS Act, permitted stablecoin issuers cannot pay holders interest or yield just for holding the coin. The statute is section 4(a)(11), enacted 18 July 2025. kucoin.com (read 2026-10-30)
  118. The GENIUS Act yield ban does not automatically stop rewards programs run by a separate crypto platform, per the OCC final rule summary. kucoin.com (read 2026-10-30)
  119. Phantom's cumulative fees are overwhelmingly Solana ($559.08m of $598.01m). defillama.com (read 2026-10-30)
  120. A DefiLlama-based analysis puts Phantom at roughly $325.89 million of gross protocol revenue for 2025, with quarterly revenue peaking at $173.84 million in Q1 2025, and annualized fees of $157.14 million in mid-June 2026. coinlaw.io (read 2026-10-30)
  121. Solana's memecoin-driven app revenue fell 97% from its January 2025 peak, to $1.8 million in one week, per DeFiLlama. cryptoslate.com (read 2026-10-30)
  122. Solana's daily fees fell to about 5,300 SOL in June 2026 from 33,000 SOL per day in January 2026. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  123. SOL hit an all-time high of $294 in January 2025, then fell to about $81.40 by late May 2026, when the memecoin market had faded. 247wallst.com (read 2026-10-30)
  124. The Block attributes the 2026 memecoin slump on Solana partly to capital moving from memecoins into perpetuals trading. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  125. @antivax_max posted about Phantom on 18 December 2025; the post has 8,717 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  126. @sol_nxxn posted about Phantom on 27 December 2025; the post has 620 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  127. Phantom says all its wallets use transaction previews powered by Blowfish, a company it incubated. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  128. Phantom acquired Blowfish, a security and fraud-protection platform, announced about 19 November 2024 (date from a search result summary; the Phantom page shows no date). phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  129. Phantom's security blog says its malicious-domain block list is updated daily and covers over 2,000 domains. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  130. Phantom's own security blog says it has had over 1,000 phishing site takedowns with PhishFort. phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  131. @TylerDurden posted about Phantom on 3 September 2026; the post has 1,735 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  132. @ramonos posted about Phantom on 13 September 2026; the post has 1,261 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  133. @NotSoEasyMoney posted about Phantom on 20 September 2026; the post has 1,190 likes. x.com (read 2026-10-30)
  134. Phantom opened direct access to Kalshi event contracts for eligible US users on 23 October 2026. coinalertnews.com (read 2026-10-30)
  135. Jupiter fully redesigned its mobile app on 14 May 2026, with one-tap trading and automatic slippage and fee handling. solanahub.de (read 2026-10-30)
  136. Jupiter released a fully redesigned Jupiter Mobile app on 14 May 2026, with one-tap trading, fiat onramp and a unified wallet interface, and no forced account creation before first launch. solanahub.de (read 2026-10-30)
  137. On 9 Sep 2026 Consensys Software Inc. announced a split: it becomes MetaMask (Lubin chairman and CEO); a new Consensys takes Linea, Besu and Teku (Mike Kriak CEO, Lubin executive chairman), to finish by end of 2026. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  138. Company says MetaMask has more than 100 million downloads across about 190 countries (no MAU figure given). theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  139. KAST sells co-branded cards, including a Solana card. solanacompass.com (read 2026-10-30)
  140. A new Phantom agent wallet starts with a zero balance and must be funded before it can transact. docs.phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  141. Signing in to Phantom's MCP server creates a fresh wallet for that agent. docs.phantom.com (read 2026-10-30)
  142. MetaMask Agent Wallet is designed for autonomous trading, including swaps, perps, prediction markets and liquidity provision, across EVM chains and Hyperliquid. theblock.co (read 2026-10-30)
  143. CryptoCardHub says the Phantom Cash card is broadly available to verified US users. cryptocardhub.com (read 2026-10-30)
  144. Bridge's Phantom case study says Phantom plans to expand the card globally, and gives no country list or transaction volume. bridge.xyz (read 2026-10-30)
  145. On 9 Jul 2026 Raagulan Pathy (@raagulanpathy) posted that KAST was dropping FX in Argentina to 0%. x.com (read 2026-10-29)
  146. A review describes Lemon Cash as combining a Visa debit card, Bitcoin cashback, daily yield on holdings and peso-to-stablecoin conversion in one app used by nearly 5 million people across Latin America. stablecoininsider.org (read 2026-10-30)
  147. MetaMask's record MAU was 31.7 million in January 2022; by January 2024 MAU had grown from 19 million (Sept 2023) to over 30 million, nearly matching the 2022 bull-market peak. dailyhodl.com (read 2026-10-30)
  148. 17% of US consumers surveyed in the Global Payments study said they had already used an AI agent while shopping. fashionunited.uk (read 2026-10-30)
  149. Gartner predicted in June 2025 that more than 40% of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027. outlookbusiness.com (read 2026-10-30)
  150. Under Brazil's central bank Resolution 521, a purchase, sale or exchange of fiat-pegged virtual assets, including international transfers or payments using such assets, will be treated as a foreign-exchange operation. cointelegraph.com (read 2026-10-30)
  151. Brazil requires virtual asset firms to file for central bank authorisation by 30 October 2026, with an independent audit attached. decrypt.co (read 2026-10-29)

Every number above is from a source listed here, read on the date shown, or from the assumptions stated beside it. Lines marked as our read, or what we'd expect, are judgement, not fact. Built from public pages only.