Author: Weilin, PANews
After a long period of silence, the Solana ecosystem wallet Phantom finally broke the tranquility. On July 9, Phantom announced the launch of perpetual contract trading features, supported by Hyperliquid's API.
More than six months ago, Phantom rode the wave of the Solana ecosystem, completing three acquisitions within the 9 months from May 2024 to February 2025. The targets were the token and NFT data platform SimpleHash, the security company Blowfish protecting users from fraud, and the embedded wallet operator Bitski. In January this year, Phantom also announced it successfully raised an additional $150 million in Series C financing, co-led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm. According to DefiLlama revenue data, Phantom wallet's trading volume peaked in January this year, with monthly revenue (fees) reaching $110 million.
However, in recent months, affected by the overall market, along with Binance and OKX promoting wallets aggressively, Phantom is facing revenue pullbacks and market growth pressures. Previously, the company stated that it has no plans to issue tokens. Can it break through in the fiercely competitive wallet wars?
Integration of Hyperliquid perpetual contract trading: Phantom's new layout.
On July 9, Phantom is launching support for perpetual contract trading, initially for users in the EU, powered by Hyperliquid. This product accesses the market through a permissionless integration with Hyperliquid's API, allowing eligible users to trade perpetual contracts directly within this popular Web3 wallet while maintaining non-custodial control over their positions.
Phantom provides a mobile-centric experience, allowing users to feel that it is an intuitive extension of the Phantom core interface, supporting up to 40x leverage, stop loss, take profit, and real-time alerts.
Meanwhile, despite perpetual contract trading bringing new functional highlights, it has also raised some user concerns about fee transparency. Some users questioned that Phantom Wallet might profit by charging higher fees, but after clarification, the exchange between USDC and SOL occurs on Hyperliquid, not on Phantom.
First, crypto user @aadvark89 mentioned, 'Phantom could make a lot of money from this integration with Hyperliquid. There’s a small detail that most people might not notice, about the fees: 'Exchanging to USDC: subject to standard Phantom exchange fees.' 'Standard' exchange fees are 0.85% for regular exchanges and 1.5% for no gas exchanges.' This user stated that they spent $50 to exchange $4000 worth of tokens, learning a painful lesson: the 0.85% applies to everyone, not just mobile app users.
Crypto user @blankxbt further pointed out, 'Isn't it terrifying for the price trend of SOL? Forcing users to deposit SOL balances, dumping them into USDC, charging exchange fees, and creating huge selling pressure, all to bring liquidity to the on-chain economy.'
However, user @pana067 pointed out that the exchange occurs on Hyperliquid, not on Phantom. Their basis is that the crypto project Unit posted about how Phantom allows users to fund their Hyperliquid perp accounts with one click.
Phantom simplifies the process of providing funding for Hyperliquid perp accounts with SOL into a user-signed transaction. The main steps are as follows:
Depositing SOL into Hyperliquid via Unit: Users sign a Solana transaction to send SOL through Unit. This is a standard wallet signature and the only on-chain interaction required on Solana.
Converting SOL to USDC on Hyperliquid Spot: Once the funds arrive at Hyperliquid, Phantom will use the spot order book to convert SOL to USDC. The exchange is executed by a proxy wallet controlled by Phantom, meaning no explicit user signature is required. Use Hyperliquid's public API to estimate slippage and expected output in advance.
Transferring USDC from Spot to Perps: This step requires the user EIP-712 signature. Phantom can pre-generate the signature via API (using the user's wallet), allowing funds to be transferred from the user's spot balance to their perpetual balance.
Three acquisitions: Phantom's rapid expansion pace.
Phantom started in 2021 as a Web3 wallet focused on the Solana ecosystem, successfully attracting a large number of users due to the blockchain's bull market at the time. According to The Block, its multi-chain strategy began in April 2023, expanding support to Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. In December 2023, Phantom soon added support for Bitcoin. Recently, Phantom launched support for Base and the Move-based Layer 1 network Sui. At the same time, Phantom plans to provide support when the Monad blockchain is released, which is currently in the testnet stage.
Rapidly growing Phantom has also entered acquisition mode. During the 9 months from May 2024 to February 2025, Phantom completed three acquisitions, showcasing its rapid expansion pace. In May 2024, Phantom acquired the wallet platform Bitski, supported by a16z, an embedded wallet operator. The specific acquisition amount was not disclosed, but Bitski had raised at least $25.5 million.
In November 2024, Phantom acquired Blowfish, a security company providing advanced fraud protection. Blowfish received support from Paradigm, raising at least $11.8 million.
On February 26 this year, Phantom acquired the token and blockchain data platform SimpleHash. SimpleHash is currently capable of handling thousands of requests per second from 80 different blockchains. Founded in 2022, it raised $500,000 in funding, with participants including Y Combinator and Coinbase Ventures. SimpleHash's LinkedIn page shows that the company is small, with 2 to 10 employees. Phantom stated that SimpleHash's expertise will play a key role in real-time market data, automated metadata updates, and enhanced spam protection, helping users make more informed asset decisions.
Through these acquisitions, Phantom is expected to simplify the crypto experience, making it easier for new users to enter the blockchain and secure their funds.
Series C financing of $150 million, facing pressure in the wallet market 'battle'.
In January 2025, Phantom announced it raised $150 million in Series C financing, co-led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm. This funding brought Phantom's total funding to $268 million, with a valuation of $3 billion. They shared user data, stating that as of January 16, Phantom had 15 million monthly active users.
Data shows that Phantom's primary source of revenue is transaction fees. With the rise of the Solana network during the Trump meme coin craze that began in November, Phantom 'awoke' from the slump in transaction fees, breaking free from the predicament of weekly revenues below $100 seen in previous months. Influenced by Trump's token launch, its revenue for the week of November 11, 2024, surged from $7,510 to $30.51 million. During the peak trading period for Solana this year, Phantom's weekly trading revenue can exceed $44 million.
With Binance Wallet joining the 'war', the Dune dashboard shows that as of July 9, Phantom's weekly Swap active trader market share is only 4%, with 21,478 users, but higher than competitor Metamask's 2.4%. In terms of weekly Swap trading volume, Binance accounts for 94.5% of the share, while Phantom only accounts for 0.3%, but still higher than competitor Metamask's 0.1%.
Overall, Phantom's performance in the market demonstrates its innovation and market adaptability. Its non-custodial perpetual contract trading feature, cross-chain wallet support, and enhanced security and data capabilities through acquisitions have secured its place in the crypto wallet sector.
Currently, Phantom also faces market pressure, but its core strategy focused on user experience and technological innovation may provide potential growth momentum in the fiercely competitive crypto market. Whether Phantom can stand out from these challenges as it further matures is a suspense worth watching.
