Read-Only API Keys Explained (Crypto Trackers)

A read-only API key is a credential you create on an exchange that lets an app see your account — balances and transaction history — but never act on it: no trading, no withdrawals, no transfers. It is the single most important setting in crypto portfolio tracking, because it is what makes connecting a tracker safe. Give a tracker a read-only key and the worst a breach can do is reveal what you hold; give it a full-access key and a breach can empty your account. This guide explains exactly what these keys are, how read-only differs from full access, and how to create one correctly.

What an API key actually is

An API key is a way to let one app talk to another on your behalf, with permissions you choose. When you create an exchange API key you get two strings — a key and a secret — and you decide what that pair is allowed to do. The crucial part is the permission scope: exchanges let you grant read (view) access, trade access, and withdrawal access independently. A portfolio tracker needs only the first.

The useful mental image is a window versus a door. A read-only key is a window into your account: whoever holds it can look inside and see everything, but the glass does not open, so nothing can be taken out. A full-access key is a door with the lock removed — it lets the holder walk in and carry things away. Trackers only ever need the window. Any app demanding the door for a job that is fundamentally about looking is telling you something about itself.

Read-only versus full-access, concretely

The difference is not subtle, and it decides whether a tracker is safe to use. A read-only key can list your balances and past trades and nothing more. A full-access key can additionally place trades and — the dangerous permission — initiate withdrawals to another address. Those are separate toggles on every major exchange precisely so you can grant one without the others.

Now trace what happens in a breach, because that is the scenario the setting exists for. If a tracker holding a read-only key is compromised, the attacker sees your holdings. That is a privacy problem, not a theft — unpleasant, but your coins stay put. If a tracker holding a withdrawal-enabled key is compromised, the attacker can move your coins out to their own address, and there is no undo button on a blockchain. This asymmetry is the whole reason to insist on read-only: it caps your worst case at embarrassment rather than loss.

What a read-only key does not protect

Read-only access solves theft, but it does not solve privacy, and it is worth being clear-eyed about the difference. When you hand a tracker a read-only key, you are still handing it a complete, continuously updated picture of what you own on that exchange — every balance and every trade. If that company is breached, or sells data, or is compelled to hand records over, your holdings are exposed even though no coins can move. Read-only caps the financial damage at zero; it does nothing about the informational cost.

That is not a reason to avoid trackers, but it is a reason to choose them deliberately. Prefer a tracker whose data practices you have actually looked at, connect only the accounts you need aggregated, and consider a local, open-source tool if the idea of a cloud service holding a live map of your net worth bothers you. Our guide to the privacy of portfolio apps covers how to weigh that trade-off tool by tool.

How to create a read-only key the right way

Creating a safe key takes about a minute. In your exchange's API settings, create a new key and grant only read or view permissions, explicitly leaving trading and withdrawals switched off. Give it a clear label so you remember which app it belongs to, and if the exchange offers an IP allow-list, restrict the key to your tracker's addresses so a stolen key is useless from anywhere else. Then paste the key and secret into the tracker, and store them nowhere else in plain text.

1. Open API management in your exchange and create a new key.
2. Grant read / view only. Explicitly disable trade, futures and withdrawal permissions.
3. Label the key and, if offered, add an IP allow-list restricting it to the tracker.
4. Paste the key and secret into the tracker; keep no plain-text copy elsewhere.
5. Confirm the tracker shows balances but offers no way to move funds.

Our step-by-step guide to connecting exchanges safely shows where each major exchange hides these toggles, since the wording differs from one to the next.

Good key hygiene over time

Treat keys like the access tokens they are, not set-and-forget settings. Use a separate key for each tracker so you can revoke one without breaking the others. Review your active keys every few months and delete any you no longer use — an unused key with live access is pure downside. If you stop using a tracker, revoke its key on the exchange rather than just deleting the app, because deleting the app does not remove the access you granted. And keep the secret out of screenshots, notes and chat messages; if it ever leaks, revoke and recreate immediately.

With the safety settled, connecting a tracker is genuinely low-risk, and you can pick a tool from our best crypto portfolio trackers — every option there supports read-only connections.