Phantom Releases Emergency Update for iOS After Users Report Losses Due to ‘App Reset’ Issue

Highlights:

• Phantom released an emergency iOS app update after users reported being locked out of their wallets.
• Users reported losing significant funds after the recent Phantom update and app reset.
• Phantom emphasizes user responsibility in securing recovery phrases to avoid fund loss risks.

Crypto wallet service provider Phantom issued an emergency iOS update. This came after users reported “app resets” that locked them out, requiring recovery phrases to regain access. On November 14, Phantom informed users on X about the issue and recommended affected users restore their wallets with their recovery phrases.

We're aware that a small number of iOS users are experiencing app resets. If you happen to be among them, you can restore your wallet using your recovery phrase.

We've pushed a new iOS app update to prevent this from affecting any additional users.

Please make sure you always…

— Phantom (@phantom) November 13, 2024

As Phantom is a non-custodial wallet, the company cannot assist in recovering lost funds if a user’s seed phrase is not stored locally or written down. They recommended contacting the support team for help. A mnemonic phrase or seed phrase, is a set of words used to restore a damaged or lost crypto wallet. The wallet usually generates it but is not stored by the provider.

Users Report Losses and Seek Reimbursements

On Wednesday, social media posts revealed that some iOS users were automatically logged out and lost access to their Phantom wallets after downloading a recent update. The issue seemed to affect users who had not backed up their seed phrases.

The team behind the Solana-based DeFi wallet Phantom released an emergency iOS app update to prevent further issues. They apologized for the inconvenience and advised users to store seed phrases securely. Moreover, the team assured, “We’re committed to ensuring this won’t happen again.”

Several users replied to Phantom’s alert, reporting major losses. One user wrote, “I lost my 983 SOL, please send it back,” while another said, “I just lost my wallet with $600K, this is my life’s savings, when will I get reimbursed?” Another user asked why their app reset and wiped all their wallets overnight.

Crypto trader ‘Ace’ warned against updating Phantom wallets without saving seed phrases. “I don’t know why they set such a horrible update, but it wipes your wallet on iOS,” they added.

Phantom Faces Multiple Technical Issues and Downtime

This is not Phantom’s first technical issue. In October, Phantom experienced downtime, resulting in some users seeing incorrect account balances. The outage occurred as users of the Solana-based decentralized app Grass claimed tokens from a newly announced airdrop. At the time, Phantom stated, “We’re currently experiencing an uptime incident, and some services may be temporarily disrupted.”

🚨 BREAKING: @phantom wallet is experiencing downtime due to a major backend incident. pic.twitter.com/dsAm2lM2td

— SolanaFloor (@SolanaFloor) October 28, 2024

The crypto wallet also faced downtime on October 3, affecting the Phantom backend. The issue lasted just 8 minutes and was quickly resolved. Additionally, the website experienced a 2-minute downtime on September 17, which was promptly fixed.

In February, the wallet also experienced delays in updating account balances. Another downtime occurred in mid-August when users were unable to view their correct account balances. A few days later, Phantom resolved some temporary issues. Phantom’s status page currently shows that its browser extension, mobile app, backend, and website are all operational.