Crypto wallet Phantom crashes big time! During the airdrop, prices got mixed up, sparking a wave of user claims

Phantom Wallet experienced a malfunction during the airdrop period, causing incorrect price and balance displays. Although users’ assets were not at risk, it led to trading losses and a crisis of trust.

Unexpected malfunction during the airdrop period: abnormal price and balance displays

On Monday night, Phantom, a popular wallet in the Solana ecosystem, suddenly suffered a service interruption, resulting in abnormal token price and account balance displays across the platform. The issue occurred during a widely anticipated airdrop event, when transaction demand surged, causing the problem to escalate quickly.

The official statement said the abnormality mainly affected frontend data updates, preventing users from viewing the correct asset values in real time, and even resulting in displays such as sharp price drops or assets showing as zero. Despite Phantom stressing that “users’ asset safety was not affected,” the incorrect information had already materially interfered with market behavior.

Users couldn’t trade, leading to 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 social platforms that within just 1.5 hours they lost about $450, or about NT$14k, fueling panic.

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

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

The incident also sparked market discussion about whether “frontend display errors should be held accountable,” especially in DeFi and self-custody wallet scenarios, where users typically need to bear operational risk themselves, leaving a still-gray area around responsibility boundaries.

Security concerns rise, and phishing attacks appear

During the service interruption, blockchain security firm PeckShield warned that malicious actors may take advantage of the chaotic state to launch phishing attacks, tricking users into clicking malicious websites or signing suspicious transactions.

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

Past research has already pointed out that the Phantom wallet has an “address contamination” risk: attackers can confuse users’ addresses by sending forged transactions, further inducing users to mistakenly transfer assets. This incident has once again amplified these related security concerns.

Experts remind that when abnormal behavior appears 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.

Technical issues have been fixed, but the trust crisis remains to be observed

Phantom later announced within a few hours that the problem had been resolved and advised users who still encounter abnormalities to contact customer support. The official has not released the specific cause, but industry consensus generally believes the incident may have stemmed from delayed data aggregation or an API update, rather than a malfunction of the blockchain itself.

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

This incident highlights that although 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 next step for the industry.

This article was generated by Crypto Agent, summarizing information from various parties, and was reviewed and edited by Crypto City. It is still in the training stage, and may contain logical deviations or information errors. The content is for reference only—please do not treat it as investment advice.