Interview (Breakpoint, Lisbon) with Brandon Millman, CEO/founder of Phantom Wallet, discussing barriers to mainstream DeFi adoption — primarily wallet UX, scalability (high Ethereum fees), and regulatory uncertainty for institutions — and arguing wallets are a pivotal interface linking users and dApps. Millman expects multi-chain growth (not a single long-term winner) and predicts institutions will gradually enter despite regulatory ambiguity.
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What's up everyone? It's Giovanni here from Breakpoint in Lisbon. I have the pleasure to be joined by Brandon Millman, CEO and founder of Phantom Wallet. How are you doing today?
I'm good, how are you?
Great. Enjoying the conference in the sun. I wanted to ask you a question regarding the situation of Defi in general. What is still lacking in Defi for onboarding the mainstream users?
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I'm biased. I think the wallet layer still, I think has still a lot left to go in terms of being able to onboard sort of like the next tens of millions of users. I think what we have right now is sort of like barely scratched the surface. I think we all forget how small the user base is right now. And so I think wallets that have kind of like a more like consumer friendly UI ux, like mobile wallets, faster blockchains and that sort of thing I think will. Yeah, but we're getting there.
Okay, so you would say that the problem is scalability of the technology.
That's definitely one. I mean, so obviously predominant chain out there is Ethereum. The fees are basically untenable at the moment for the majority of people out there. I mean like even in the us, small fraction of people can actually be using Defi apps on Ethereum, vast majority of people are priced out. Like no one can spend basically their whole day's wage on one transaction and actually have it be usable. And so I think, yeah, faster, cheaper blockchains, that's definitely going to be one huge unlock for just all across the globe.
And what do you think about user experience? Because in the past, like maybe one year ago, DeFi had a very clunky user experience. As it improved, we are already at the best level possible of user experience. There is still room to go. What do you think about the user experience experience factor here?
Yeah, definitely still room to grow. I feel like UI UX is one of our sort of fortes with the wallet and something that we spend a lot of time on. We've spent actually a lot of quite a bit of time building Defi apps on Ethereum previously. So three co founders of Fantom, we all used to work at this defi startup called 0x on Ethereum and have a lot of experience bringing like those apps to market. And so we had a lot of good ideas for how we can sort of improve the wallet side of things. And yeah, I think we're on our way, but we're just getting started.
You see wallets as a key element for Growing the space. Can you talk a bit more about this aspect? So why is wallet technology so important in order to. To make defi space really mainstream?
Yeah, so that's a great question. So basically, blockchain ecosystems are kind of like have. They're kind of like a marketplace with two sides. So there's users which are kind of like the demand side, and then there are dapps and applications are kind of like the supply side. So applications are providing the supply, users are going there to make. The users are coming and kind of eating that supply. And the really interesting thing about wallets is that they're actually the point at where those two pieces meet. And so if wallets can do a really great job both on the developer side and on the user side, it actually has the ability to sort of like 10x the underlying ecosystem. And so I think wallets like really crucial.
And regarding regulation, so yesterday I was talking to a representative of Galaxy Digital. Of course they are dealing all the time with big institutions and they told the. This guy told me that institutions are very interested in defy, but they are very. It's very difficult for them to get in because of the regulatory framework which is preventing them from entering the space because of KYC and AML regulation primarily. So how is this situation going to evolve? Are these big institutions cut out from the defi space or there will be a moment where there will be the possibility for them to come in and how.
Yeah, that's a great question. And I feel like it's definitely a situation that's still shaking out. I mean, the, you know, there's just an inherent risk to all of this technology and everything. And I feel like the current regulatory kind of forces at play are really struggling to keep up with all of this, like, explosion of new technology. And so it's going to be a while until things shake out and all of that. So institutions, I feel like we'll see more institutions take just risk to get in because I doubt there's going to be any very clear regulatory certainty for a number of years, to be honest. So I think you'll just see institutions just kind of bite the bullet, take some risk and jump in.
But does the space need them in order to continue evolving, or can the space do grow without the institution part in it? What do you think?
No, not necessarily. I think the space has been and is continuing to grow, like just straight up on the consumer side. And I don't think it's really necessary for institutions to get that involved and to really push the space forward. Obviously it helps to have some of those big voices at play on the regulatory side and all of that, but yeah, I think it's not necessary.
Okay, and now let's talk a little bit about how do you see the future of Defi evolving? So we have different scenarios, we have different layers that can be used in Defi. We have layer one protocols, layer two protocols. How do you see the future of Defi evolving? Is it going to be there just one protocol or multiple protocols interacting? I've been talking with one of the founders of Polygon not long ago and he was telling me that he doesn't see multiple layer 1 coexisting in the long term. He sees just one layer one which is Ethereum and everything else built on top of it. Do you kind of share the same maximalistic view?
I would say I think it depends on, I guess like what time range you're talking about. I mean, the fact is like right now the demand for block space is super high and that is why you're seeing such high fees on Ethereum and all of that. All the high fees are basically a direct response to how much demand there is. And in a marketplace situation where there's so much demand, there needs to be more supply that meets up. There's an opportunity for supply to meet up. And that's why you're seeing like all these different chains like Polygon, Solana, et cetera, sort of stepping up to meet that supply. And I think, and that's just like with this, and that's just such a small amount of users still, like we've just barely scratched the surface, like in order to like get through that stage where like hundreds of millions of users, billions of users, there's going to be even more and more demand and therefore more and more supply will need to spin up. So I think we're nowhere really close to understanding like where the end state is and what it looks like. My guess is that it's going to be some sort of multi chain world.
So you see like Ethereum and Solana coexisting in the same space without the risk of any of the two to kind of completely outtake the other one, I think.
So I feel like in most market dynamics like you, it's very rare you see someone who's just completely dominating with no other. Like there's Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, all of them could make a similar argument. Like they have enough infrastructure and network effect to sort of destroy the other. But in reality there's many different players involved. And so I don't know why the blockchain space would evolve that differently from that.
