Phantom Wallet Faces Downtime Amid GRASS Airdrop Frenzy

Phantom Wallet, a widely used Solana-based Web3 wallet, reported service disruptions on October 28, 2024, amid a surge in demand due to the GRASS token airdrop. The wallet’s team informed users on social media platform X that they were experiencing an “uptime incident,” affecting certain functionalities. Users requiring immediate transactions were advised to turn to decentralized applications (dapps) to bypass the temporary downtime.

The wallet’s developer attributed the disruption to backend challenges linked to the Grass Airdrop One event, a major token distribution initiative by Grass, an AI-powered data layer on Solana. The GRASS token distribution, anticipated widely by the Solana community, was launched on the same day and promptly listed on high-profile exchanges, including Bybit, Bitget, KuCoin, and Crypto.com. The large-scale airdrop reportedly set records for the Solana blockchain, with over 2 million users attempting to trade their newly acquired tokens.

Despite Phantom’s temporary outage, the Solana blockchain itself maintained 100% uptime, reflecting a notable improvement in network resilience compared to past challenges. The GRASS token airdrop represents the largest of its kind in Solana’s history, underscoring the growing demand for decentralized applications and blockchain scalability.

This incident echoes previous disruptions in the sector, such as the August downtime of the Telegram Wallet, triggered by high trading volume for the Dogs (DOGS) token on several exchanges. The parallel challenges in these cases highlight the rising pressures on digital wallets and blockchain platforms amid surging user demand.

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