Phantom, the Solana-based wallet provider, has introduced a new burn feature that enables users to delete spam non-fungible tokens (NFTs) supplied by con artists.
The new feature, which allows users to get a tiny deposit of Solana (SOL) each time they use it, is accessible via the Burn Token button in the Phantom wallet app, according to a blog post from the Phantom team published on 18 August 2022.
The blog post read,
“We’re still in the Wild West days of Web3. As the crypto ecosystem grows, so have the number of bad actors looking for ways to steal user’s funds. The rapid growth in popularity of NFTs has led to an increasingly prevalent method of attack for scammers – Spam NFTs.”
Due to Solana’s cheap transaction fees, Phantom stated that the problem has been particularly pervasive there, with bad actors frequently airdropping large numbers of purportedly free NFTs that really include harmful links.
The recipient of spam NFT is typically instructed to click a link to generate a free NFT, but if they do so, their wallet is really depleted of money. Alternatively, the link will request the recipient’s seed phrase, which will have the same effect.
It further read,
“These scams are becoming increasingly more sophisticated. For instance, after a contract address and domain are identified as malicious, scammers can change the metadata of an NFT to try to avoid being blocklisted. It can feel like an endless game of whack-a-mole.”
The action is a part of a larger Phantom initiative to combat spam NFTs and undesirable actors in the market. By alerting users to “any fraudulent transactions that could endanger their assets or permissions” after clicking on dodgy links, the team claimed to be fighting scammers as well.
Solana-based NFT’s wallet provider: Phantom
According to the company, Phantom is one of the most well-liked wallet suppliers for Solana-based NFTs and decentralized fiance (DeFi), with more than 2 million active users each month.
A security flaw at the beginning of August caused the competitor wallet company Slope to lose an estimated $8 million worth of cash on the Solana network.
Austin Fedora, the head of communications at Solana, conducted a post-mortem investigation and discovered that, despite the attack being caused by Slope, 60% of the victims were Phantom users.
According to data from CryptoSlam, Solana hosted the second-largest amount of NFT sales volume in July with $56.1 million, trailing only Ethereum which posted a staggering $535.6 million.