A wallet keeps keys, not a pile of coins

Crypto Wallet Basics publishes general information. It is not a wallet, an exchange, or a substitute for your own checks. A wrong address or a lost backup can mean the coins are gone.

People talk about a wallet as if the coins sit inside an app. They do not. A crypto network keeps a shared list of who can spend which outputs or balances. Your wallet stores the secret that lets you write a valid change to that list.

That secret is a private key, or a seed phrase that can recreate a set of private keys. The app, the phone, or the little hardware device is a tool for holding and using those secrets. Delete the app and the coins are still on the network, as long as you can restore the keys.

This is why two people can look at the same address in different apps and see the same balance. They are both reading the public network. Only the person with the key can spend.

If a screen says the balance is zero after you reinstall, check that you restored the same wallet and the same network before you assume the coins moved. A fresh install with no restore is an empty keyring looking at the chain.