Answer
Do you need a crypto wallet to back a project?
Short answer
No. You sign in with an email address and a wallet is created for you in the background — there is no seed phrase to write down, no extension to install and no exchange account to open. Most people who back a campaign here never think about it.
The escrow that makes the refund guarantee real is a program on a public network, and that does require an account on that network to hold your pledge. What it does not require is that you manage one. The wallet is created and secured on your behalf when you sign up, in the same way an online bank creates an account number you never chose and rarely look at.
That means none of the usual obstacles apply. There is no twelve-word phrase you must never lose, because losing access is recoverable through the same sign-in you already use. There is no browser extension, no hardware device, and nothing to approve in a second window while you are trying to pay.
If you already have a wallet and would rather use it, you can — connecting an external one is supported and changes nothing about how the campaign works. That is a preference rather than a requirement, and it is the less common path here by a wide margin.
The reason the network is involved at all is the thing it buys you: an escrow that anybody can inspect and that releases on a rule rather than on a decision. Making you learn about it in order to benefit from it would have been a poor trade, so we did not.