An API key is an object created and stored on an exchange. This is a data set that includes “login + password + permissions”, only it is not created for a person, but for some program. In this case, for the Veles service, so that the bot can log into your trading account and place orders on your behalf. When creating keys with the “Link to a third-party application” option, you specify “Veles” as the selected application, and no other program or website will enter the exchange using this key, even if it knows the “login + password”.
One account on the exchange can have several API keys, both for different services and for the same one. It is recommended to delete unused keys.
The Binding in Veles cabinet to this API key is an object stored on the Veles website, that is, a configuration component for the bot that indicates which exchange account the bot should trade on.
You can select one prepared Binding in several bots – and all of them will go to one trading account to work.
What you see in the Veles profile in the “API keys” section is all the Bindings. The API keys themselves are on the exchange.
The binding can be either Futures only or Spot only. The API key, however, may contain permissions for both types of trading. That is, there may be one key on the exchange, and there will be two different bindings in the profile for it – Spot and Futures.
The API key + Binding set can be created either with “Fast connection” (available for the main account of the exchange), or completely manually (required for subaccounts, since Fast connection is not supported).
If you change the key on the exchange, and you already have a binding used in twenty bots, then you just need to edit this one binding, insert new data from the key into it. And all bots will automatically use the new data, you do not need to edit each of them.
When the API Binding is created correctly, the bot displays the amount of available funds (“Transferrable amount”) on the corresponding trading account in the “BALANCE” field. A Trading Account is a Derivative, Spot, or Unified Trading Account on an exchange. The Funds account is not a trading account, the bot does not connect to it.
If your funds are in the right trading account, but the bot sees the amount less than expected, or even “0”, then you need to check the positions and orders opened on this account. Open positions with negative PnL reduce free funds amound down to zero (and return them when they go into profit, to positive PnL). And when creating orders, the exchange also reserves funds from the free margin, and then either returns them to the balance (when the order is canceled), or this amount goes into the deals volume (if the order is executed).
