Should you screen share your crypto wallet? What the other side gets

One question settles most cases: who started the call? Then what a shared screen exposes, how remote control raises the stakes, the support impersonation scam, a short routine for calls you start yourself, and a way to teach wallet screens without opening yours.

Published: 14 October 2026

Hardware wallet app screen composed in Flexdger Wallet: a portfolio named Meridian, a total balance and its change for the day above a row of Transfer, Swap and Buy buttons, the list of holdings with each amount and its move for the day, in a light theme with a lavender accent. — Composed in Flexdger Wallet. Every figure on it was typed in; nothing is held, sent or received, and no chain is read.

Who placed the call?

Every safe or unsafe situation in this article reduces to that question. If you placed it, with a friend or relative, to show them how a wallet works, screen sharing is a reasonable tool that needs a bit of care. If someone else placed it, claiming to be your exchange, a wallet security team or a podcast host with an urgent problem or an interview, you are probably the target of a scam. The screen is the same in both cases: your wallet, live, at full resolution, in front of another person.

Why genuine support never asks for your screen

In 2024 the FBI warned that criminals pose as crypto exchange staff, announce an urgent account problem and walk victims toward giving up access. Its advice is to hang up and call the official number, never one the caller offers. The companies agree. Kraken says its support will never ask you to install remote access or screen sharing software. MetaMask says it has no support phone number, never asks you to get on a call and never sends direct messages, and that anybody requesting your Secret Recovery Phrase is attempting a scam.

Investment fraud uses screens too. A 2023 FinCEN alert describes scammers who ask for remote access to a victim's device, or for screenshots, so they can talk the victim through buying crypto one step at a time. Kraken outlines the typical shape of these calls: an urgent reason, a guided install, the theft, and a cover story that keeps you talking while funds move. Having you make the transfer yourself is common because it slips past security checks. The FBI's 2025 report counts more than $1 billion lost by people over 60 to tech and customer support scams alone.

Whenever a person who contacted you asks you to share a screen, install a tool, read out a code or "verify" a wallet, end the call. Reach the company afterwards through its official site or app, never through a number, link or chat the caller supplied.

What the other person can read

Sharing is not control, but it hands over everything on display. Kraken's help centre says a viewer can read all of it, including passwords as they are typed, one-time codes as they arrive and a seed phrase if you open a backup. They can also record, or film the monitor with another phone, without telling you. It is the same exposure as a wallet shown on a live stream, only with a smaller audience.

Screen	What it gives away
Receive page or QR code	Your whole address, and through a block explorer every balance and transaction, past and future.
Total and token list	A price tag attached to your face, voice and contact details.
Activity history	When you trade, where you deposit, who pays you.
Backup or recovery phrase page	The wallet itself: anyone holding those words can empty it from anywhere.
Extension pop-up	Connected sites and pending approvals, perfect material for a believable phishing message.
Neighbouring tabs and windows	An exchange login, a password manager, your notes.

Protections built into phones, and their limits

Apple's safety guide says a person viewing a FaceTime screen share cannot see your notifications or the keypad as you type a passcode. Google says Android 15 hides the content of private notifications and one-time passwords during sharing, blanks the screen while passwords are entered, and lets you share a single app rather than everything.

No one claims these features hide what an app itself shows. Balance, address and recovery phrase page are plain app content, and they travel with the rest.

When the viewer becomes the driver

From iOS 18, on a one-to-one FaceTime call, a person saved in your contacts can request remote control of your iPhone. Apple warns that whoever controls it can open and close apps, change settings, delete things or send messages, and that you should accept requests only from people you trust. The same guide says they cannot use Apple Pay but may be able to pay with third-party apps. A wallet is one of those.

Desktop meeting software has this option as well, and attackers have used it on crypto people. In 2025 Trail of Bits described a campaign called ELUSIVE COMET. Targets were invited to what looked like a media interview, and during the video call the attacker asked for remote control of the computer, with the request styled to look like a normal app prompt. Trail of Bits ties the group to millions in stolen crypto. The warning signs were social, not technical: the "journalists" would not use email and booked the call through pages unrelated to the outlet they named.

A routine for calls you start yourself

Helping a parent or friend is a kind thing to do. These habits keep the call about the screens, not your savings.

Place the call to someone you know, on a channel you picked.
Share one window, not the desktop. Google Meet offers a tab, a window or the entire screen; take the narrowest. On Android 15, share a single app.
Close the extras before pressing Share: exchange tabs, banking, email, password managers, wallet backups.
Keep the backup page shut. No phrase, key or password on screen for even a second, not even to show where it lives.
Turn down remote control. On iPhone, Don't Allow keeps sharing running, and Apple says the other person is not told you declined.
Do not sign or approve anything while sharing. Kraken advises against signing in, approving a withdrawal or opening a backup during a session.
Remember TVs. Mirroring to a television exposes the screen to the whole room and anyone with a camera.
Stop sharing before switching apps. A stray tap can put the wrong screen on air.

Teaching wallet screens without showing yours

Even a careful share leaves one cost the routine cannot remove. Open your real wallet and the viewer sees your actual address, balance and history, and a recording keeps them. What a learner needs is rarely any of that. They want to know where Receive is, what a token list means and what a swap page asks before you confirm.

That is work for another kind of app. A crypto wallet app simulator, also called a larp wallet, produces a believable wallet screen from balances you type in. It holds no funds and touches no blockchain.

On a call you share that instead: balances you picked, prices that move like real ones, no address to look up, no backup page to open by accident and nothing a remote session could move. Flexdger Wallet is one such app, a paid one we make, running in a browser window or full screen on a phone (how a larp wallet works). For the explanation itself, see how to explain a crypto wallet to someone, and for a room instead of a call, running a wallet demo live.

When the learner is ready for a real wallet, swap roles. They set it up on their own device, write their own recovery phrase and tap while you talk. You never see their phrase and they never see yours.

Where the line is

Say what it is. At the start, tell the listener the wallet on screen is a practice mockup with invented balances.
Never use it as evidence. Not for a payment you claim to have sent, not for holdings, not for a trading claim. Passing a mockup off as a real balance is deception, and our terms of use forbid it.
The reverse is true as well. If someone on a call shows you a wallet or dashboard as proof, it proves nothing. A screen can show any number, and only your own wallet is a check (what a wallet screenshot can and cannot show).

Flexdger Wallet is not affiliated with Apple, Google, Zoom, MetaMask or Kraken. Their names appear only to describe their rules and tools.

Sources

Questions

Who should start the call when a wallet is involved?

You should. Calls begun by the other side, about a problem with your account, are the standard setup for impersonation scams. Hang up and reach the company through its official website or app.

Does FaceTime hide anything while I share?

Apple says the person watching cannot see your notifications or the keypad as you enter your passcode. Whatever an app displays is still visible, so a balance, an address or a backup screen goes out in full. Since iOS 18 a contact can also request remote control, and you can answer Don't Allow.

What can a person do once they control my screen?

Apple's safety guide lists opening and closing apps, changing settings, deleting items and sending messages, and notes they may be able to pay through third-party apps. On a computer, control means your mouse and keyboard and every account already signed in.

Do wallets or exchanges ever ask me to share my screen?

No. Kraken says support never asks you to install remote access or screen sharing software. MetaMask has no support phone number and will not ask you to join a call. The FBI advises ending the call and ringing the official number.

I already shared my screen with a stranger. Now what?

End the call and delete any app they asked you to install. If a recovery phrase or key appeared, assume the wallet is compromised and move what is left to a new wallet made away from the call. Change any password that was visible and file a report at ic3.gov if you are in the United States.

Is casting a wallet to a TV a form of screen sharing?

Yes. Everyone in the room can read it and anyone can film it, so the same rules about what to open apply.