A Regular Permission Review Routine for Exchange API Keys

If you have been automating for a while, your account almost certainly holds more API keys than you remember creating. A bot you stopped running, a portfolio tracker you tried once, a spreadsheet experiment that never got deleted: each one may still carry trading or withdrawal permissions and an IP restriction list that no longer matches the machine using it. Because keys do not expire on their own and nothing prompts you to look at them, stale permissions accumulate quietly. A permission review routine fixes that. The idea is simple: on a fixed schedule, you open the API management area, read what each key is actually allowed to do, compare it against what the connected tool needs today, and either tighten it or delete it. You record what you found so the next review is faster. This guide is written for readers in South Africa who trade on Binance, OKX, Bybit or Bitget, and it applies the same way to any of them. Work through the setup once to build your inventory, then repeat the shorter cycle monthly.

Why permissions drift out of date

Permissions drift because the reason you created a key rarely lasts as long as the key itself. You enable spot trading for a grid bot, then stop the bot but leave the key. You add futures permission for one experiment and never remove it. You paste a new IP address into the restriction field when you move to a different connection, and the old entry stays behind. Over a year, a handful of keys can end up with broader access than any single tool you still use.

The risk is not abstract. A key with trading permission can place orders if it leaks; a key with withdrawal permission can move funds; a key with neither can still expose account data. Most exchanges let you restrict a key to specific IP addresses, which limits where it can be used, but that protection only works if the list is current. If you have changed internet provider, started working from a different location, or moved a bot to a new server, the restriction may now be pointing at an address you no longer control, or at no address at all.

Drift also happens on the exchange side. Products get added, interfaces get reorganised, and permission labels may be worded differently than when you first created the key. That is why the review should always be based on what the API management screen shows you today, not on what you remember ticking at setup. Where anything is unclear, the help centre is the place to confirm how a specific permission is described and what it covers.

Build your key inventory once

Before any routine can run, you need a complete list. Open the API management section of your account and go through every key, including ones you believe are dead. For each, note a short label you will recognise later, the date it was created if the screen shows one, which permissions are currently enabled, whether an IP restriction is set, and which tool or person uses it. If a key has no owner you can name, that is already a finding.

Store this inventory somewhere you control, not in a note attached to the bot itself. A simple table with one row per key works: label, purpose, permissions, IP restriction status, last reviewed date, decision. If you run automation on more than one exchange, keep a separate block per exchange so you never confuse a key from one platform with another. Do not copy the secret itself into this table; the inventory is about permissions and ownership, and secrets belong only in the tool that needs them.

Expect the first pass to take longer than later ones. You may find keys created years ago, keys with names like test or new, and keys whose purpose you genuinely cannot reconstruct. Treat an unattributable key as a candidate for deletion rather than something to investigate at length. If you are unsure whether deleting it will break a running tool, disable or restrict it first, watch for errors over the next few days, and remove it once nothing complains.

The monthly review cycle

Set a recurring date, for example the first weekend of each month, and treat it as a short maintenance task rather than a project. Start by opening the API management screen and comparing it against your inventory. Add any key that is not listed, and mark any listed key that no longer exists. This single step catches the most common problem: a key created in a hurry and never recorded.

For each key that remains, ask three questions in order. First, is the tool it belongs to still in use? If not, delete the key. Second, does the permission set match what that tool actually does? A read-only dashboard does not need trading permission, and almost nothing you run yourself needs withdrawal permission. Third, is the IP restriction still accurate for where that tool runs? If your connection or server has changed, update the restriction or remove the key until you can.

Finish by updating the last reviewed date and writing one line about what you changed. That line matters more than it looks: next month it tells you whether a key has been sitting untouched for months, which is often a sign that the tool behind it is gone. If you trade futures through an automated strategy, check the futures documentation for that exchange so you understand which permission the product requires before you decide a key is over-scoped.

Keep the cycle short. A review that takes ten minutes gets done; one that requires rebuilding your whole setup does not. If you find something complicated, such as a key shared between two tools, note it and handle it in a separate session rather than letting the monthly pass stall.

Decisions, records and stop conditions

Every key should end the review with one of four decisions: keep as is, reduce permissions, change the IP restriction, or delete. Write the decision down even when it is keep as is, because an explicit decision is what stops a key from drifting unexamined for another year. If you reduce permissions, confirm afterwards that the connected tool still works; a bot that silently fails to place orders is easy to miss until it matters.

There are clear stop conditions. If you cannot identify what a key is for, delete it. If a key carries withdrawal permission and nothing you run needs it, remove that permission. If a key has no IP restriction and could have one, add it. If you are unsure how a permission is defined or what deleting a key affects, pause and check the help centre before acting rather than guessing.

Record keeping should be light but consistent. Alongside the inventory, note the date of each change and a one-line reason. If you later notice unexpected activity, this log tells you whether it lines up with something you did. For anything involving costs, such as whether a particular automated order type is treated differently, consult the exchange fee page rather than relying on memory, and record what you read there with the date, since schedules change.

Finally, treat the routine as protection against your own past decisions rather than as a one-off cleanup. The keys you create next month will need the same scrutiny, so the habit of labelling a key at creation and adding it to the inventory immediately is what keeps future reviews quick.

Risk boundary: South Africa Crypto Guide

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Scenario checkpoint

• List every API key in your account, including ones you think are unused, with a short label and its current permissions.
• For each key, name the tool or person that uses it; if you cannot, mark it for deletion.
• Confirm the IP restriction still matches where the connected tool actually runs, and update or remove it if not.
• Check whether any key holds trading or withdrawal permission that the tool does not need, and reduce it.
• Delete or disable keys belonging to tools you no longer run, then watch for errors before final removal.
• Record the review date and one line per change in a log you control, and set the next review date.