Do you need my exchange API keys?

Not necessarily. A key is optional and read-only, and it does one thing: it brings your fills and funding into the journal.

Short answer

Not necessarily. Arbiq works without keys: market data is public and journal entries can be typed by hand. A key is optional and serves one purpose — your fills and funding settlements flow from the exchange into the journal on their own. A read-only key is enough. The product places no orders and moves no funds.

What a connected key does

• Reads your trade history and files it as journal drafts — you build operations from them

without retyping anything.

• Reads your settlements — perpetual funding and borrow interest — and puts them into positions

in place of our rate-based estimate.

• Nothing else. Balances, open positions on the exchange and orders are neither read nor

changed. How it works: Connecting an exchange and importing trades.

How the key is kept

The key is encrypted the moment it is connected and exists nowhere in the clear — not in the database, not in the interface. It is opened only for a request to the exchange, in an isolated part of the system the application servers cannot reach. The interface shows its first and last four characters only; every action with the key is written to the account's log; deleting erases it for good, and imported records stay yours. In full, worst cases included, in How exchange keys are kept.

Which key to create

• Read-only. A key that can withdraw funds is not accepted at all: the journal never needs

that right. A key that can trade connects, but it is flagged and we suggest replacing it.

• IP-restricted, where the exchange allows: the connect form lists the addresses the product

calls from.

• With a passphrase on OKX and Bitget — entered in the same form.

What follows

You still place the orders. A spread's card links to the instrument in the venue's own terminal, and you work from there.

The journal stays your record. The import brings facts — quantity, price, fee, time — but which fill belongs to which position is your call, made by ticking them in the operation form.

Your balance is invisible to the product. A position closed by hand stays open in the journal until you record the exit — or build it from the imported fills.

What is stored, then

Your email for signing in, list settings, favourites, alert rules, journal entries and, if you connected an exchange, the encrypted key with the log of its use. There is more in the privacy article under Articles.