Crypto wallet model, mockup, prototype: the difference

Three words get used for the same request, and they name three different deliverables. Only one of them is an image you can hand over tomorrow morning.

Published: 21 September 2026 · Last reviewed: 25 September 2026

Three words, three deliverables

Model, mockup and prototype get used for the same request, and then the wrong thing gets delivered. Someone asking for a crypto wallet model may want a database schema, a 3D mesh, or a picture of a screen. Three jobs, three costs, three different people doing the work.

What a model is

The word has two senses and neither of them is a picture.

A data model. The structure a wallet app holds: accounts, derivation paths, a token list with contract addresses and decimals, cached balances, a price feed and its refresh interval. Decimals alone decide whether the numbers are right — Bitcoin counts in 8 places, Ethereum in 18, Solana in 9, USDC in 6. Get that wrong and every figure on the screen is wrong. Engineers need it. Nobody can look at it.

A 3D model. A mesh of a phone or a hardware device, dropped into a render. It gives you the object, not the interface — the screen stays a texture you have to supply from somewhere else.

What a mockup is

One still image of one screen, at a fixed pixel size. No states, no navigation, no logic. That sounds thin until you check where screens are actually handed over: a store listing, a deck slide, a press kit, a documentation page, a shot on set. Every one of those takes an image file and nothing else.

Size is the part people skip. A screen composed at an arbitrary canvas gets rejected, or resampled into mush. My Larp Wallet composes the screen live — tokens, amounts, avatar, accent color, real prices moving — and opens it on your phone, so the screenshot comes out at the phone's native resolution: 1179 by 2556 on an iPhone 14 Pro, a size the listing accepts.

What a prototype adds

A prototype answers the one question a mockup cannot: does the flow hold up when a stranger tries to move through it. Linked frames in a design tool do that. So does a coded front end. Both take days rather than minutes, and exporting a frame out of either one gives you a mockup at the end anyway.

What each one costs

• Model. Hours to weeks. Output is a schema or a mesh, and neither can be viewed.
• Mockup. Minutes. Output is one image per screen, at the size you set.
• Prototype. Days. Output is a clickable flow that cannot be pasted into a listing.

Which one to build

Deadline is a listing, a slide or a thumbnail: compose the mockup and stop. Engineers are starting on the app: build the data model. There is a flow to test on a person: build the prototype.

None of the three is a wallet. A mockup holds no funds, connects to no chain and signs nothing. It is a drawing of an interface at phone resolution — enough for a listing, a deck or a camera, and not evidence of a balance.

Questions

What does model mean when people say crypto wallet model?

Two things, neither of them a picture. A data model is the structure the app holds: accounts, token entries, decimals, cached balances, a price feed. A 3D model is a mesh of a phone or a hardware device used in renders, and it still needs a screen image supplied as a texture. Neither one can be uploaded to a store listing.

Which one do I need for an app store listing?

A mockup, at the exact pixel size the listing expects. Listings take images, not links and not schemas. A prototype has to be exported to a frame first, which turns it into a mockup by a longer road, and a data model produces nothing anyone can look at.

When is a prototype worth the extra days?

When the open question is whether the flow works — whether a person who has never seen the app can get from one screen to the next without being told. That takes clicking, so it takes a prototype. If the open question is what a single screen looks like, a still image settles it in minutes.