Recent growth is down to NFTs, says Phantom CEO

Phantom – Solana’s crypto wallet that unlocks a simple and secure way to interact with blockchain-based applications – has released its Version 0.13.0.

One of the new features includes ‘NFT Collections’. NFTs are now automatically grouped together by collection, and Phantom has improved the overall loading performance and fixed the never-ending loading issues some users were experiencing.

Also, there is MoonPay that enables users to purchase SOL directly inside Phantom by using a debit card, credit card, or bank account.

Phantom also improved its Wallet Importer. When users import a Secret Recovery Phrase, they can now choose which accounts they’d like to import.

Previously, Phantom attempted to automatically detect accounts with SOL balances but often users had other accounts they wished to use. Now there is more control.

Coin Rivet spoke to Brandon Millman, Phantom’s CEO, who explained the latest release represents the culmination of community feedback and user pain-points.

“First off, Phantom users love to collect NFTs,” he declared.

“Some users were having difficulty navigating large collections, so we created a feature to intelligently group related NFTs for a more organised browsing experience.

“Next, we know crypto is worldwide by default so now users can use Phantom in 10 different languages! Finally, when that new NFT is dropping and you need SOL asap, our new MoonPay integration helps you get crypto fast, using just a credit or debit card or bank account.”

Phantom plans mobile app before holidays

Asked about his opinion on NFTs, Millman told us that he thinks NFTs have caused a tremendous spike in adoption across the blockchain ecosystem – specifically on Solana.

“Much of the recent growth can be attributed to NFT related activity,” he explained.

“Unlike DeFi, NFTs appeal to a much broader audience and introduce a much more casual userbase to blockchain technology.”

Millman revealed that he first met the Solana team back in 2018 when they were visiting the 0x office in San Francisco.

Fast forward to 2021 and he chose to build Phantom on Solana because its “cheap and scalable design showed much promise for onboarding the next tens of millions of users”.

The future plans, said Millman, include, getting the strongly-anticipated Phantom mobile app in the hands of users before the holidays with a full release at the beginning of next year.