Using FOMOSCAN
What is a web3 wallet?
A web3 wallet does not hold your coins. Your balance lives on the blockchain; the wallet holds the private key that proves you can move it. That single fact explains everything else about wallets: lose the key and the balance is unreachable, leak the key and it is gone, and 'connecting' a wallet to a site never gives that site the ability to spend on its own.
Keys, not coins
A Solana address is derived from a keypair. The network records that this address holds a balance; the private key is the only thing that can authorise moving it. A wallet is therefore a key manager with a user interface, and every security question about wallets is really a question about who can reach that key.
Custodial versus self-custodied
- Custodial. A company holds the key. You have an account with them. Password resets are possible, and so is the company freezing, losing or misusing the balance.
- Self-custodied. The key is yours - in an extension, an app, or split so that no single party can reconstruct it. Nobody can freeze it, and nobody can recover it for you either.
Connecting is not permission to spend
Connecting a wallet to a site shares your public address and lets the site propose transactions. Every transaction still has to be signed. What people mean when they say a site 'drained' a wallet is almost always that they signed something - often a token approval - without reading it.
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