Digital wallet

A digital wallet is software that stores payment credentials (cards, bank links, or crypto keys) and lets the user pay without re-entering them. The mental shift vs. a physical wallet is that the credential and the authorisation are decoupled — Apple Pay doesn't give the merchant your card number, it gives a one-time token signed by Face ID. Three flavours worth distinguishing: mobile wallets wrapping existing cards (Apple Pay, Google Pay), balance-holding apps (PayPal, Venmo, Cash App), and self-custody crypto wallets where you hold the keys yourself (MetaMask). The first two are just better UX on top of traditional rails; the third is a different trust model entirely.