The problem Phantom is trying to solve
According to a blog post published by the Phantom team, the new feature is available through the “Burn Token” tab of the Phantom wallet app, allowing users to receive a tiny Solana (SOL) deposit every time they use it.
“We’re still in the Web3 Wild West era. As the crypto ecosystem grows, so do the number of scammers looking for ways to steal users’ funds. The rapid rise in popularity of NFTs has led to an increasingly popular method of attack for scammers, NFT spam. »
Spam is indeed a difficult problem to solve. Malicious actors take advantage of Solana’s low transaction fees to exploit web3 mechanisms, such as NFT airdrops. Then users are invited to click on a link to have NFT or a free gift, these are actually pirate links that will not give anything and will take control of the wallet to steal all these funds.
Another way is through a seed pass request, which gives immediate control of the wallet, it is good to remember that you should never give your pass pass for a web3 operation, this is information that must remain completely secret to the outside world. Spam related to cryptocurrencies has increased by 4,000% in two years according to LunarCrush.
“These scams are becoming more sophisticated. For example, after a contract address and domain are identified as malicious, scammers can modify NFT metadata to try to avoid being blacklisted. It may seem like an endless killing game. »
The BURN Solution
The user has the option to choose the NFTs they want to burn and they can do it on their own, in addition to this, the Phantom community is actively working on creating a list for the projects NFT scam smart wallet to recognise. When Phantom detects a scam, the contract address and domain are added to a blocklist that hides the scam from the wallet and generates a warning that the site is malicious.
“More than 800 mint addresses from malicious NFT collections are already on our blocklist and it is integrated with how we identify scams in our site blocking. If you want to report scams, you can even create a request to edit our blocklist. »
Scammers also received a public warning from the FBI targeting fake crypto apps, another disastrous area for crypto users.
For the next steps, users can expect more automated spam detection in the future. Thanks to providers like SimpleHash and Phantom internal reporting, they will be able to assess if NFT is likely to be spam, this feature is expected for the coming months.
The fight against scams continues and it’s good to see easy-to-use solutions for the user to protect their funds and educate the public on the risks associated with airdrops and other web3 tools.
