Understanding how Phantom organizes your assets helps you manage it effectively.
Key terms:
- A wallet is a top-level container derived from a Secret Recovery Phrase.
- An account is a set of addresses across all supported chains.
- An address is a unique public key on a specific chain.
Wallet
A wallet is the top-level container for your assets. You create a wallet using either a recovery phrase or a Google/Apple account and a four-digit PIN.
Account
An account is a set of addresses on each supported blockchain. Every wallet starts with one account, but you can create more. Use different accounts for different purposes—long-term holdings, daily activity, collectibles, or airdrops.
Phantom is a multi-chain wallet, so each account includes addresses on all supported chains (Solana, Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Bitcoin, Sui, Monad, HyperEVM). You don't need to create separate accounts for each chain.
You can personalize accounts with custom names and emoji or collectible avatars.
Special account types
- Cash account: A self-custodial wallet on Solana tied to your Phantom username. It always holds CASH, a USD-pegged stablecoin on Solana, and powers Phantom Cash features. See Get started with Phantom Cash for details.
- Trading account: An account created automatically when you connect a recovery-phrase wallet to Phantom Terminal (trade.phantom.com). See Why do I see a new trading account after using Phantom Terminal? for details.
Address
A crypto address is a unique, public string of alphanumeric characters that acts as a digital destination for sending and receiving assets on a blockchain, similar to a bank account number. Different blockchains have different address formats:
- Solana addresses look different from Ethereum addresses.
- EVM chains (Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Monad, HyperEVM) share the same address format, but the chain still matters—ETH on Ethereum isn't the same as ETH on Base.
Importing wallets
You can import wallets from other apps such as Solflare, MetaMask, or Base Wallet using a recovery phrase. This restores the full wallet with all associated accounts across supported chains.
You can also import a single account on one chain using a private key. In that case, the imported wallet contains one account and one address on that chain only.
See Import or restore a wallet in Phantom for instructions.