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How finqt connects to 20+ exchanges without ever holding your keys

April 1, 20262 min read

One of the first questions we get from new users is a good one: "If finqt shows my Binance balance, does finqt have access to my Binance account?"

The short answer is no. The longer answer is worth understanding if you care about how your money moves — and you should.

Read-only API keys, by design

Every major exchange lets you create API keys with scoped permissions. When you connect an exchange to finqt, we ask for keys with read-only permissions. That means finqt can see:

  • Your balance across every asset
  • Your open positions
  • Your historical trades
  • The current prices you're looking at

And that's it. We can't place orders, we can't withdraw, we can't move a single satoshi. Even if someone broke into finqt tomorrow and stole every API key we store, the worst they could do is look at your portfolio.

What about the stock exchanges?

Stocks are a different story because most brokers don't expose a trading API the way crypto exchanges do. For NASDAQ, NYSE, HKEX, and the other 18+ stock venues we cover, finqt uses market data feeds — no broker account needed. You see the same quotes an institutional desk would, streamed in real time.

The custody line

Here's the rule we've stuck to since day one: finqt is a mirror, not a wallet. Your coins live where you put them. Your stocks live where you bought them. finqt's job is to give you one clean view of everything, plus the tools (finqtAI, intelligence feed, journal) that turn that view into better decisions.

If you ever see an app asking for withdraw-enabled keys to "track your portfolio," walk away. There's no reason for a tracker to have that power, and the people who ask for it are not the people you want managing your keys.

Get started

Ready to connect your first exchange? Download finqt and walk through the onboarding — it takes about 90 seconds per venue, and you can disconnect any time.

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