Connecting Exchanges and API Keys
Which exchanges LootX supports, what API key permissions to grant, how to add a connection, configure a proxy, and tell connection status by color.
A connection links the terminal to your exchange account via an API key. Without it, the order book, time and sales, and charts still work, but the terminal can’t see your orders, positions, or balance, and you can’t trade. This page covers supported exchanges, how to create a key and with what permissions, how to set up a connection, route it through a proxy, and tell what’s happening from the status color.
Exchanges and Markets
The exchange list has two groups.
| Group | Venues | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Trading and data | Binance, Bybit, OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC, KuCoin, BingX, Hyperliquid, Aster | Order book, time and sales, charts, your orders and positions, trading. Spot and futures. |
| Data only | Binance Alpha, Upbit (spot) | Order book, time and sales, and charts. No trading, no keys required. |
You can set up multiple connections to the same exchange — for example, for different subaccounts. If the exchange isn’t included in your plan, the terminal will offer a subscription when you select it — see Subscriptions.
What key to create on the exchange
Create the key in the API management section of the exchange’s website. The terminal needs:
- Read — to see your balance, orders, and positions.
- Trade on the markets where you’ll trade: spot, futures, or both.
IP allowlist. If the exchange lets you restrict the key to a list of IP addresses, do it. Enter the address the terminal actually uses to reach the exchange: your public IP, or the proxy’s IP if orders go through a proxy. If you keep a direct fallback (see below), a failed proxy will expose your own IP to the exchange, and it will reject the requests.
Passphrase. OKX, Bitget, and KuCoin ask you to set a passphrase when creating the key. It’s not your account password — it’s the third part of the key, and you enter it in the terminal along with the key and secret.
How to add a connection
Open the connection list
Gear icon in the window’s top bar → Connections. At the top you’ll see how many connections are set up and how many are active.
Click “+ Add connection”
The Add connection form opens.
Name the connection and select the exchange
Connection name — anything you like, e.g. “Binance_main”; you can also pick a color to tell connections apart in panels. Exchange — a searchable list. Once keys are entered, you can’t switch the exchange: create a new connection for a different exchange.
Paste the keys
Usually API Key and API Secret, plus Passphrase for OKX, Bitget, and KuCoin. Hyperliquid and Aster have their own fields, see below.
Select markets
The Spot and Futures toggles control which markets this connection works on. Auto-connect connects automatically when the terminal starts.
Click “Save”
Changes apply immediately as you type. Save closes the form, Cancel rolls back changes and, for a newly created connection, deletes it.
Each row in the list has a toggle that turns the connection on and off without deleting it, and a checkmark in the Auto column for auto-connect. Edit a connection by clicking its row. Delete connection in the form removes it along with its keys; this can’t be undone.
Keys are stored encrypted in the settings file and are decrypted only on this computer. They are not exported with the configuration.
Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid has no key + secret pair: the single Private Key / Seed field accepts a wallet private key.
- API wallet key (also called an agent) — recommended. You create this key on the Hyperliquid website; it can trade but not withdraw. The terminal automatically finds the main account linked to the API wallet and shows its balance and positions. Account-level actions like transfers can’t be signed by an API wallet — do those on the Hyperliquid website.
- The wallet’s own key also works, but it gives full access to funds.
Hyperliquid identifies the account by the key’s signature. If there’s no deposit at that address, the terminal will report that the exchange rejected the key — check the key and your deposit.
Aster
Aster has two key types, and the form accepts both:
- a regular API key — into the API key / API wallet address and API secret / Private key fields;
- an API wallet — its address and private key into the same two fields, and the main wallet address (0x…) into Account Id.
Proxy
A proxy is needed if the exchange is unreachable from your country or if your key is tied to the proxy’s IP.
Add a proxy
Settings → Proxy → + Add proxy. Fill in Name, Address (host and port), and Login and Password if needed. The terminal detects the protocol — SOCKS5, HTTP, or HTTPS — on its own.
Test it
The Check button pings the proxy and reports the result: “OK — SOCKS5 proxy is responding”, “Not responding: …”, or “Port is open, but this is not a SOCKS5/HTTP proxy”. Then click Save.
Select the proxy in the connection
In the connection form, under Proxy: pick the proxy and choose what to route through it — Orders and account, Market data, or both. The market-data choice applies to all connections for that exchange.
On the Proxy page there’s a toggle “Fall back to a direct connection if the proxy is unavailable”. It’s on by default: if the proxy goes down, the terminal connects directly so you don’t lose data.
If the proxy replies “Proxy … is rejecting the login/password (407)”, check the login, password, and the subscription term with your proxy provider.
Connection status
In the connection row, next to the markets, there’s a status dot. Hover over it for details.
| Look | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Green dot | Connected: data is flowing, trading is up. |
| Yellow pulsing ring | Connecting, or trading is reconnecting. The tooltip shows the last failure reason, if any. The terminal retries on its own. |
| Red ring, steady | No connection to the exchange, the exchange rejected the key, or trading is manually disabled. |
| No dot | The connection is off. |
Next to the name there’s a mode icon: green arrows for a trading connection, a gray eye for a data-only venue.
A quick way to toggle trading on the fly is from the main window: click the exchange strip in the top bar to open the connection list with On and Off buttons and the Connection settings › link.
If the exchange rejected the key
The terminal immediately shows “…: the exchange rejected the API key or secret — check them in connection settings”, and the status dot glows red with the tooltip “The exchange rejected the API key or secret”. Check the key, secret, and passphrase: a stray space when pasting, a key deleted on the exchange, or a key from a different subaccount.
If the key is valid but lacks a required permission or your IP isn’t on the allowlist, there’s no separate message: the terminal shows the exchange’s text as-is. Find the code in it and open your exchange’s page under Error messages.
Clock skew between your computer and the exchange is corrected automatically — no configuration needed.
View-only mode
When a panel can’t trade right now, an eye icon appears in it. Hover over it and the tooltip names the reason:
| Tooltip | What to do |
|---|---|
| “View only: this venue has no trading — order book, time and sales, and charts only” | Nothing: that’s how Binance Alpha and Upbit work. |
| “View only: no connection to this exchange. Set one up in settings” | Add a connection with a key. |
| “View only: the connection is disabled in settings” | Turn the connection on. |
| “View only: this panel’s market is currently disconnected — waiting for recovery” | Wait: the terminal reconnects on its own. |
If you press a trading button or hotkey in this state, the order won’t be sent, and the terminal shows “⚠ Exchange not connected”, “⚠ Connection disabled”, or “⚠ This venue has no trading”.