How to spot a fake crypto wallet screenshot
A composed wallet screen is quick to make and quick to check. The tells are arithmetic, timestamps and rounding — and none of them settle whether a number is real.
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Check the arithmetic first: the total should equal the sum of the rows, each row should equal quantity times that token's price at the stated moment, and the day's percentage should match what the market did. Anything that fails is composed — but the only check that settles it is a public address on a block explorer.
Start with the arithmetic
Most guidance on how to spot a fake crypto wallet screenshot starts with the pixels. Start with the numbers. Add the rows: the total at the top of a wallet screen is the sum of the holdings below it, and in a composed screen it often is not, because the total is a field someone typed. We build a wallet screen simulator, so we know that failure from the inside — our balance and daily change are computed for you, and both can be overridden by hand. That override is the most common reason a composed screen fails the first check.
Then take the rows one at a time. Quantity times the token's price at the stated moment should equal the row's fiat value. Off by a cent is rounding. Off by ten percent is not.
Percentages have to agree with the market
A day's move is public. If a token closed down four percent, a row showing it up that day is a claim anyone can check against price history. The portfolio percentage is stricter: it is a weighted average of the rows, so it lands on an ugly number. A total up exactly 5.0 percent over rows at plus 12, plus 3 and minus 1 is a coincidence worth doubting.
The parts nobody remembers to change
- The clock. 9:41 is the time on the phone in the manufacturer's own marketing images. It survives into composed screens because it is not the part anyone is thinking about.
- The battery. Full, or identical across images supposedly taken hours apart.
- A set that does not move. Two screens sent an hour apart, prices identical to the cent, describe a market that stopped.
Rounding tells you who typed it
Real balances are ugly. They carry the remainder of a swap, the dust left after a fee, eight decimals nobody chose. Typed balances round: 10.00000, 2.5, a total sitting near a memorable number. One clean quantity means nothing. Four in a column means a person picked them.
The interface has a version
Wallet apps change between releases — row heights, type weights, where the percentage sits, whether the fiat value is above or below the symbol. A screen said to be from this week, in a layout that shipped two versions ago, is an old image or a rebuilt one. Compare it against a current install, not against memory.
The only check that settles it
Everything above catches mistakes. None of it proves anything, because a careful composition passes all of it. A screenshot of ours would, at whatever resolution the phone produces, with the phone's own clock in its status bar. An image is not evidence of a balance and cannot be turned into one.
What settles it is a public address and a block explorer. The chain reports what that address holds, independently of anyone's screen. To tie the address to a person, ask for a signed message: they sign a phrase you choose, you verify it against the address. Address, explorer, signature. If someone offers a screenshot instead of an address, that is the answer.
Questions
What is the fastest check on a wallet screenshot?
Add the rows and compare with the total at the top. In a real app the total is computed from the holdings, so it always agrees. In a composed screen the total is a field someone typed, and it is the first thing to drift. The second check is per row: quantity times the token's price at the stated time should equal the row's fiat value.
Why does the status bar give a screenshot away?
Because nobody edits it. 9:41 is the time on the phone in the manufacturer's own marketing images, and it survives into composed screens for the same reason: it is not the part anyone is thinking about. A battery frozen full does the same. Across a set it is worse: several images supposedly taken hours apart, all showing the same minute and the same prices to the cent, describe a market and a phone that both stopped.
What does a block explorer actually prove?
That a given address held a given balance at a given block. It says nothing about who controls the address, so an address alone can be copied from anywhere. Connecting the two takes a signed message: the holder signs a phrase you choose with the private key, and you verify the signature against the address. Address, explorer, signature — no image is part of it.
Compose the screen instead of describing it
Your tokens, your amounts, your accent — laid out in the browser, then opened on your phone at your own address. A mockup, and we never pretend otherwise.
- Unlimited tokens, amounts and accents
- Add it to your home screen; it opens like an app
- Live market prices that keep moving
- Your own address, mylarpwallet.com/you
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Keep reading
- Guide: What a larp wallet isThe three meanings the sources confuse, where the line between a mockup and a deception falls, and what the product makes.
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- Crypto larping, and the three things people mean by itThe word covers a design practice, a privacy habit and a form of fraud. Sources use it for all three without saying which.