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Phantom , a crypto wallet heavily used in the Solana ecosystem , has seen its active exploiter base more than triple over the past year , its CEO and Centennial State - founder Brandon Millman exclusively shared with TechCrunch .
In January 2024 , Phantom remove 3.2 million monthly active user ( MAUs ) , up 220 % from 1 million one year ago , and recorded 941,000 installs , 463.5 % more than 167,000 installs during the same sentence frame of reference , Millman state . “ These numbers are fundamentally our peak ” and outperform utilisation and metrics from the previous crypto Samson market in 2021 and former 2022 , he bring .
“ TheJitoandJupiter airdropswere a vast turning stop for the ecosystem , ” Millman state . “ Solana has extend to escape speed and prove itself to be a first - class ecosystem . It ’s the platform attracting some of the best detergent builder in the world . ”
Solana - focused decentralised finance ( DeFi ) Jito web and decentralized aggregator Jupiter both did airdrop in late 2023 and other 2024 , respectively , allow for users of their projects with reward , or tokens , fundamentally as a “ thank you ” for using their overhaul .
When it rains, it pours
These airdrop , coupled with therecent Solana memecoin mania , could be why the ecosystem has seen a surge of both sometime and novel substance abuser .
“ It ’s a lot of DeFi natural process but what that ’s equating to is crypto wallets are becoming the unexampled ledger entry point to crypto , ” Millman think . When a exploiter first onboards to crypto , the distinctive method is to go through centralized crypto rally like Coinbase , which he attributes to “ word of mouth , ” but now the world has commute , he think , “ more and more people are downloading a crypto wallet ” to get started .
This entrance point of wallets and on - chain applications are becoming the “ new thing people are trying to get access to when they want to use crypto , ” Millman said .
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apart from being a shoes for mass to hold and trade their cryptocurrency , Phantom also aims to be a “ safe admittance ” for web3 experiences , Millman noted . During the Jupiter airdrop , by sharing tie-in on Phantom ’s site it helped repulse 1.1 million sojourn to the Jupiter claim site , in an effort to prevent people from getting scammed by malicious links , he added .
Growth over revenue
Phantom started in 2021 as a Solana - only crypto notecase , but has since expanded to provide multichainsupport for Ethereum , Polygonand Bitcoin as well . Now , the caller has its sights on growing its user nucleotide as it look for to become the top destination for citizenry new to crypto and wallets .
“ Right now , we ’re in a focussed emergence stage . We ’re not extremely focused on generating revenue , but we favor to fee it back to the exploiter growth . The more users that sign up , the more developers are attracted to work up on the ecosystem , and the more program and users we get . It ’s like a flywheel and we ’re looking to uprise as tight as potential , ” Millman state .
Phantom gain money the same path most other wallets do : By providing in - app widget features for swapping cryptocurrencies and charging a little fee for them . The company , which isbacked by investors like Paradigm , Andreessen Horowitz , Jump Capital and Solana , also has a “ inviolable correspondence rag , ” Millman said , so it does n’t have to focus much on tax revenue currently .
“ We believe the future of wallets is multichain , just the way crypto exchange have evolved . Coinbase started off as a Bitcoin - only rally , then added support for Ethereum , and one thing pass to another , ” he say . “ No one can fathom a public where exchanges only have one coin . pocketbook will comply the same path . ”
While it ’s still too former to expect the mass to ego - custody their crypto asset , the lift in usage of crypto pocketbook points to further ontogeny in the space . In the past , on - string apps have been too expensive or complicated to use , but these airdrops and the resulting influx of user show the benefit of composability , Millman add .
Crypto exchanges like Coinbase run a wholly closed system , but on - chain systems like Solana are open to developer to build on top of . So by trading or venture plus on substitution , people could potentially leave out out on advantage like airdrop , Millman noted .
And when you consider that crypto wallets let users swop cryptocurrencies , too , they become more attractive than exchanges because they also bring home the bacon entree to on - chain perks . “ DeFi applications are now incentivizing usage with airdrops , and the only way to get that is by downloading a wallet [ … ] The intent of users and types of on - chain apps have grown and diversified , make wallets an entryway point , ” he say .
Millman expect crypto wallet adoption to continue increase as more providers and the ecosystem make for new features and explore new avenues . “ There ’s still a lot of shrill edge and foreign construct , that ’s for certain . surreptitious recovery phrasal idiom are the de - facto key management for wallets . But these are sphere we ’re buy the farm to innovate on this year , and we ’re excited to show the next evolution of what it will look like . ”
In the future , he wait crypto notecase to aid people do more than just buy , hold and sell crypto . “ It ’s a window into a much full-bodied world of interoperability . ”
