Solana-based wallet provider Phantom has launched a new burn feature allowing users to remove spam nonfungible tokens (NFTs) sent by scammers.
According to a Thursday blog post from the Phantom team, the new feature is accessible via the Burn Token tab in the Phantom wallet app, allowing users to receive a minuscule deposit of Solana (SOL) each time they use it:
“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.”
Phantom noted that the issue has been particularly prevalent on Solana due to its low transaction fees, with bad actors often airdropping supposedly free NFTs en masse, which contain malicious links.
Spam NFT generally prompts the receiver to click a link to mint a free NFT. If they complete the process, however, their funds end up being drained from their wallet. Alternatively, the link will ask the receiver to input their seed phrase, resulting in the same outcome.
“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 blog post read.
The move is part of a broader initiative by Phantom to counter spam NFTs and bad actors in the space. The team stated that it also fights scammers through its phishing warning system, which issues warning to users on “any malicious transactions that could compromise their assets or permissions” after clicking on dubious links.