You want to mint from a project you've never heard of, try a new app, or claim an airdrop on a site you haven't used before. You'd rather not connect the wallet holding your savings. That's what a burner wallet is for.
What is a burner wallet?
A burner wallet is a separate Solana wallet you use for risky interactions, like new mints, unfamiliar apps and airdrop claims, while your main funds stay elsewhere. Keep only what each task needs in it. If you approve something malicious, the damage stays inside the burner.
Phantom's own scam-response guide says to use a burner wallet for risky interactions, funded with only what that interaction needs. Connecting a wallet to a site shares its public address, not its key, but every transaction you approve can move whatever that wallet holds. A burner keeps that "whatever" small.
How do you make a burner wallet?
There are two ways, with different levels of protection:
- A new account in the wallet you already use. Quick to make, and it protects you from a bad signature: a transaction approved from the burner account can only move the burner's assets. But in Phantom, Add Account → Create New Account derives the new account from the recovery phrase you already have, so a leaked phrase exposes both. Check that the burner is the active account before you approve anything.
- A wallet with its own recovery phrase. Create a fresh wallet with a brand-new phrase, ideally in a separate browser profile or wallet app. If the burner's phrase ever leaks, your main funds stay out of reach. It doesn't protect a main wallet on the same device if that device is compromised.
Either way, send the burner only the SOL the task needs, plus a little for network fees, including the cleanup afterwards, and never import your main wallet's recovery phrase into it.
What a burner wallet can't protect
A burner limits how much you can lose. It doesn't make a malicious transaction safe, and anything in the burner can still be taken. Read the wallet preview before you approve, don't interact with unknown tokens that show up uninvited, and never type a recovery phrase into a website. Our wallet drainer guide explains what a drainer can do once you sign.
A burner isn't anonymous either: funding it from your main wallet and sending assets back links the two addresses publicly.
How do you clean up a burner wallet?
Burners get messy fast. Mints and token airdrops can create token accounts in the burner, each holding a small SOL deposit, and any approval you granted stays on its token account until you revoke it or close the account.
Retire the burner instead of reusing it if you signed something with it that you can't explain, or if its recovery phrase or private key may have been exposed. With an exposed key, move what you want to keep first: anyone holding the key can take what's left, including SOL you reclaim. If the burner shares a recovery phrase with your main wallet, a leaked phrase exposes your main wallet too, so move your main funds to a new wallet with a fresh phrase.
When you're done with a task:
- Move what you want to keep. Send tokens and NFTs you want to your main wallet; Mass Send moves several at once.
- Revoke approvals on accounts you'll keep open. The revoke tool shows account-level delegates you granted on the burner's token accounts and clears the ones you select. It charges no fee beyond the network fee. Closing an account removes its approval too.
- Get the deposits back. Burn spam you don't want in Sol Incinerator's Pro Mode (burning is permanent, and compressed NFT spam returns no SOL), then close the empty token accounts in Fun Mode to get their deposits back, minus our fee.
- Send the SOL home. Use your wallet's max option to move what's left back to your main wallet.
When you're finished with the burner for good, our guide to deleting a Solana wallet covers retiring it. If a drainer has already taken control, start with what to do after connecting to a scam site, and if sends now fail, see how to move tokens from a hacked wallet.
Sol Incinerator
Close the empty accounts your burner wallet piled up and get their SOL back.