The crypto market has gone through tremendous change since the first cryptocurrency launched in 2009. One of the visible changes that we have seen in the sector is the emergence of the decentralized finance sector. The decentralized sector allows traders to carry out transactions without the need for a third party. But for that to be successful, traders need to make use of a gateway to store assets or carry out their trading in the sector. In the last few years, many wallets have made their way into the decentralized finance sector, but it remains to see which one is the best of them. With most wallets in the sector being non-custodial, users can buy and store assets in the wallets without banks. In this article, we will be discussing Phantom wallet, a DeFi wallet in the sector.
What is a Phantom Wallet?
Phantom is a non-custodial wallet used mainly on the Solana blockchain. Not only is the wallet a web 3 digital wallet, but it also has a user-friendly interface. With Phantom, users can store, send and receive tokens. Like other popular wallets such as MetaMask, traders can add the wallet to browsers such as Chrome as an extension.
Besides storing, buying, and staking purposes, traders also use the wallet to buy NFTs on the Solana blockchain. Currently, the wallet does not support Ethereum based tokens, but the developers are working on an update to that effect. Like most wallets in the DeFi sector, only the user holds the private keys to his wallet.
How much does Phantom Wallet charge for transactions?
Traders pay little commission to the network, known as transaction fees, for their activities on the blockchain. Traders also pay transaction fees in the native token of the network, SOL, when they use the network. This is the same across all the blockchains in the DeFi sector. For instance, users on the Binance Smart Chain pay their fees in BNB, while users on Ethereum pay their transaction fees in ETH. This means that no matter the transaction you want to carry out on the Solana blockchain, you should have enough SOL to cover your fees.
How safe is Phantom Wallet?
The phantom wallet is like every other non-custodial wallet in the DeFi sector. What this means is that users are solely responsible for the security of their wallets. It also means that the security of a user’s Phantom wallet does not lie on any third party. With the creation of a new wallet, a user would be asked to write down a group of 12 words known as a seed phrase. Should anything happen to the wallet device, the user would need the words to recover their wallet. If a user loses the 12-word seed phrase and the device that has the account, the account is gone. So it is advisable that a user writes the 12-word seed phrase correctly and in the correct order to be able to use it to recover his account.
Connection to other hardware wallets
Asides from acting as an extension on a browser, Phantom also supports a connection to hardware wallets. A typical example is a popular wallet, Ledger. To connect your Phantom wallet to your Ledger wallet, you will have to connect both wallets after installing the app on your computer.
Swapping on Phantom
If you use the Phantom wallet, you will not need an external exchange to help you swap from one token to another. This is majorly down to Solana’s decentralized exchange on the blockchain that takes care of all this. Also, this swapping method makes it easy for users to move and convert from one token to another without using an external dapp. A user would have to pay a small fraction of SOL as transaction fees to carry out swapping activities.
Staking on Phantom
Phantom also allows users to earn rewards on the platform by using the staking feature. Before staking, a user needs to check out the validators and choose the one that he wants. Traders can also stake their SOL tokens via other means such as the Exodus wallet and the FTX exchange.
In conclusion, using the Phantom wallet might present a challenge as a new user. But previous MetaMask users will not have issues using the wallet. Also, new users can familiarize themselves with the wallet interface after usage over a short while. With Phantom still adding innovative measures, it is only a matter of time before they make the wallet’s interface more friendly.