Phantom crypto wallet crashes! During the Airdrop period, prices were messed up, sparking a wave of user claims.

Phantom wallet experienced a malfunction during the airdrop period, causing errors in price and balance displays. Although the assets were safe, it triggered trading losses and a trust crisis.

A sudden malfunction during the airdrop period caused abnormal price and balance displays

Popular Solana ecosystem wallet Phantom suffered an unexpected service interruption late Monday, resulting in abnormal displays of multiple token prices and account balances on the platform. The malfunction occurred during a popular airdrop campaign, and the surge in trading demand caused the issue to escalate quickly.

The official statement said the abnormality mainly affected front-end data updates, preventing users from viewing the correct asset values in real time, and even leading to situations where prices appeared to crash or assets appeared to drop to zero. Although Phantom emphasized that “user asset safety was not affected,” the incorrect information had already materially interfered with market behavior.

Users couldn’t trade and suffered losses; the community demands full compensation

During the outage, multiple users reported being unable to sell tokens smoothly, missing opportunities from price fluctuations, and even seeing paper losses. Some users said on community platforms that in just 1.5 hours, they lost about $450—roughly NT$14k—sparking panic that spread through the community.

Image source: X/@LetitBurn79 Some users on community platforms said they lost about $450 in just 1.5 hours

As more rate-of-return cases emerged, some users have publicly demanded that Phantom provide a compensation mechanism, arguing that the platform failed to operate stably during high-volatility periods, which has already affected trading decisions.

The incident also sparked market debate over whether “front-end display errors should be held accountable,” especially in DeFi and self-custody wallet scenarios, where users typically have to assume operational risk themselves, leaving accountability boundaries in a gray area.

Security concerns intensify; phishing attacks take the opportunity

During the service interruption, blockchain security firm PeckShield warned that bad actors may exploit the chaotic situation to launch phishing attacks—tricking users into clicking malicious websites or signing suspicious transactions.

Image source: X/@PeckShieldAlert Blockchain security firm PeckShield warned that bad actors may exploit the chaotic situation to launch phishing attacks, tricking users into clicking malicious websites or signing suspicious transactions

Past research has indicated that the Phantom wallet has a “address pollution” risk: attackers confuse users’ addresses by sending forged transactions, further inducing users to mistakenly transfer assets. This incident once again magnified those security concerns.

Experts提醒 that when anomalies appear at the application layer, users should verify their asset status through an on-chain explorer, and avoid relying solely on the wallet’s displayed information to make decisions.

The technical issue has been fixed, but the trust crisis remains to be watched

Phantom later announced within a few hours that the issue had been resolved and advised users who still encounter abnormal behavior to contact customer support for assistance. The official has not disclosed the specific cause, but the industry generally believes this event may have stemmed from delays in data integration or API updates, rather than a failure of the blockchain itself.

In fact, Phantom has previously experienced similar balance display delays, showing that even in scenarios involving high-frequency trading and large-scale simultaneous user activity, the front-end infrastructure still has bottlenecks.

This incident highlights that while self-custody wallets emphasize asset ownership, they still face challenges similar to those of centralized exchanges in terms of user experience and system stability. How to strike a balance between decentralization and reliability has become an important issue for the industry going forward.

This article is generated by the Crypto Agent, summarizing information from multiple parties, and reviewed and edited by 《Crypto City》. It is currently still in training, and may contain logical deviations or information errors. The content is for reference only and should not be considered investment advice.