Phantom wallet falters for nearly 3 hours amid high demand for GRASS airdrop Phantom wallet falters for nearly 3 hours amid high demand for GRASS airdrop
The wallet services went down six minutes after the GRASS token airdrop claim went live, prompting observers to relate the events.
2 min read
Updated: Oct. 28, 2024 at 7:31 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Wallet provider Phantom services experienced nearly three hours of downtime on Oct. 28 amid users’ rush to claim GRASS tokens. Users on X reported missing balances and an inability to perform transactions.
According to Phantom Status, a major incident with the wallet’s back end made the service unresponsive at 1:36 P.M. UTC and went back live at 4:20 P.M. UTC. This is the second time Phantom services have gone down this month, with an 8-minute shutdown reported on Oct. 3.
After resolving the issue, Phantom shared on X that its team would “continue to actively monitor the situation,” adding that necessary steps would be taken to prevent similar issues.
Moreover, Phantom reported 12 major backend incidents in 2024, 7 of which happened on Feb. 1, totaling nearly one and a half hours of downtime. Two days later, on Feb. 3, the wallet provider reported delays with token balances.
As of April this year, Phantom reported 7 million users, quickly making the shortage noticeable to Solana users.
Meanwhile, the Solana network’s systems remained fully operational when Phantom went down, as Solana Status data shows total uptime for the past 90 days.
Downtime amid airdrop
Notably, Phantom’s issues started six minutes after the claim of GRASS tokens went live, prompting observers to tie both events as users went to collect their rewards for interacting with the protocol.
The tokens are native to the Solana-based decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) network Grass and are applied to reward users that lend unused internet bandwidth. The network capacity is then used to train and fine-tune artificial intelligence models.
The official Grass documentation reveals that 100 million GRASS tokens, representing 10% of the supply, will be distributed in this first airdrop.
GRASS’s price has fluctuated today. One hour after its launch, it fell 28% to reach $0.65 and has recovered 9% since then. According to data from CoinGecko, the token is priced at $0.71 at the time of writing.
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Gino Matos
Gino Matos is a law school graduate and a seasoned journalist with six years of experience in the crypto industry. His expertise primarily focuses on the Brazilian blockchain ecosystem and developments in decentralized finance (DeFi).
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Solana is a high-performance blockchain platform that utilizes a unique consensus algorithm called “Proof of History” to achieve fast transaction speeds and low fees.
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Phantom is a friendly Solana wallet built for DeFi & NFTs that makes it safe and easy for you to store, buy, send, receive, swap tokens and collect NFTs on the Solana blockchain.
