Why broker connections are read-only
What Alpha Ledger can and cannot do with your account, and how credentials are stored.
Alpha Ledger connects to your broker read-only, and this is a structural property rather than a promise.
What that means concretely
The broker adapter interface has two methods: verify the credentials, and fetch trades. There is no method that places, modifies or closes an order, so there is no code path through which Alpha Ledger could trade your account even if it were compromised.
What to give it
- MetaTrader 4 and 5 — your investor password, never your master password. The investor password cannot place orders at the platform level either, so even a leak cannot be used to trade.
- cTrader, TradeLocker, Match-Trader, DXtrade — a read-only API token.
- Crypto exchanges — an API key with only "read" or "view" permissions. Never enable trading or withdrawals.
If a connection form ever asks you for a master password or a key with trading rights, that is not Alpha Ledger.
How credentials are stored
Encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, decrypted only at the moment a sync runs, and never returned to the browser — not even in encrypted form.
Turning it off
Settings → Accounts → remove the account. The credential is destroyed with it. Your trades stay in the journal unless you delete the account itself.