Embedded Wallet vs. Connected Wallet — Which Am I Using?
Bankr works with two kinds of wallets, and a lot of confusion ("where did my funds go?", "why am I paying gas?", "why can't I subscribe?") comes down to which one you're in. Here's the difference and how to tell.
The Two Wallet Modes
Embedded Bankr wallet — created automatically when you sign in with email, X, Farcaster, or Telegram. Bankr's infrastructure (Privy smart wallets) signs transactions on your behalf, which is what enables gas sponsorship and one-message trading. The keys are non-exportable by design — you can't export a seed phrase, and the wallet is permanently tied to the account that created it.
Connected (external) wallet — your own wallet (MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet, a hardware wallet) linked to Bankr. You keep the keys and sign transactions yourself.
What Requires Which
Bankr Club subscriptions — embedded wallet only. Payments are signed by Privy on your behalf, and Bankr doesn't hold keys for external wallets. If you're on an external wallet, use Max Mode instead — it works with any wallet.
Gas sponsorship — embedded wallets only, on supported chains (Base, Polygon, Unichain, World Chain, BNB Chain). Gas is never sponsored on Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Solana regardless of mode.
Some NFT purchases — the reverse: collections using royalty-enforcement contracts (LimitBreak) block gas-sponsored wallets, so those need external wallet mode.
Fee claiming — behaves differently per mode. If you're seeing unexpected gas charges or different fee-claim behavior than you expect, check which wallet mode you're in first.
"My funds disappeared" — the usual causes
Nine times out of ten the funds are fine and you're looking at the wrong wallet:
Logged in with a different account. Each login method can resolve to a different wallet. If you created your wallet with X and later signed in with email, you may be looking at a fresh, empty wallet. Log out of bankr.bot completely, then log back in with the account you originally used — check whether your wallet address and Club status are back.
Session mismatch. Browser sessions can desync. A full log-out and log-in with the same account usually fixes it.
Multiple linked socials. If you've linked several accounts, Bankr may have resolved to a different wallet than you expected.
You can always verify where your funds actually are on-chain — look up your wallet address on Basescan (or the relevant chain's explorer).
Tip: to avoid lockout risk, log into the wallet that holds your assets and link your email as a backup login in Settings. Both login methods will then reach the same wallet.
Depositing Funds
Send tokens directly to your Bankr wallet address on the chain you want to use them on — for Base (most common), send ETH on Base. Don't send funds on unsupported chains or the wrong network.
Still can't find your funds?
If a full log-out/log-in with your original account doesn't bring your wallet back, open a ticket at the Bankr Help Center with your wallet address and the handle you signed up with — the team can verify what's going on.
For full details, see the Wallets FAQ on docs.bankr.bot.