Binance shows your crypto. But it does not show your stocks, property, gold, or savings. And it does not show anything in dirhams. Here is how to fix that.
Binance is the most popular cryptocurrency exchange in the UAE. It was one of the first major platforms to receive a full Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) licence from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), and it has become the default exchange for crypto investors across the Gulf. If you hold Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any of the hundreds of altcoins Binance supports, there is a good chance your holdings sit there.
But Binance was built to be an exchange, not a wealth tracker. Its portfolio view shows your crypto balances and profit-and-loss in USD or USDT. It does not show your total net worth. It does not convert values to AED. And it has no concept of the rest of your financial life: the apartment in JVC, the gold you bought from DMCC, the stocks in your brokerage account, or the savings sitting in Emirates NBD. If you want to understand your complete financial picture, Binance alone cannot give it to you.
Binance does provide a portfolio overview inside the app. You can see your spot holdings, your funding wallet, and even a P&L breakdown over time. For pure crypto tracking, it works. But for UAE-based investors, there are real limitations:
For someone who holds only crypto and nothing else, Binance's portfolio view is fine. But most UAE investors have diversified portfolios. The average investor in Dubai holds assets across three to five different categories, and crypto is usually just one of them.
The solution is to connect your Binance account to a dedicated portfolio tracker that can pull in your crypto alongside everything else. The connection happens through a read-only API key, which lets the tracker see your balances without ever having the ability to trade or withdraw.
Here is the step-by-step process:
On the Binance website, go to your profile icon in the top-right corner and select Account. From the left sidebar, click API Management. On the Binance mobile app, navigate to Profile, then Security, then API Management.
Click Create API and choose "System Generated" when prompted. Give the key a label you will recognise, such as "Cedrus Read Only". You will need to complete two-factor authentication to proceed.
This is the most important step. When configuring your API key permissions, ensure that only "Can Read" is enabled. Do not enable "Enable Spot & Margin Trading". Do not enable "Enable Withdrawals". Do not enable "Enable Futures". The key should have read access only, which means it can see your balances but cannot execute any transactions.
Security note: A read-only API key is like giving someone a view-only link to a spreadsheet. They can see the data but cannot change anything. Binance enforces this at the API level -- even if someone obtained your read-only key, they could not move a single satoshi.
After creation, Binance will show you two strings: the API Key and the Secret Key. Copy both immediately. The Secret Key is shown only once. If you lose it, you will need to create a new API key.
Open the Cedrus app, navigate to the crypto section, and tap Connect Exchange. Select Binance from the list, paste your API Key and Secret, and confirm. Cedrus will immediately pull your spot balances and display them in AED.
The entire process takes under five minutes. Once connected, your Binance holdings sync automatically whenever you open the app.
Once your Binance account is linked, your crypto holdings appear inside Cedrus alongside everything else you track. The experience changes in a few important ways:
For many users, connecting Binance is the moment their financial picture clicks into focus for the first time. Crypto stops being an isolated number on an exchange and becomes part of a coherent wealth strategy.
Handing over API credentials to any third-party app raises valid security concerns. Here is why read-only keys are fundamentally different from full-access keys, and why the setup is safe:
The principle is simple: Cedrus needs to see your balances to display them. It never needs to move your money, and the API key you provide does not grant that ability. This is the same read-only model used by institutional portfolio management platforms worldwide.
Binance is the starting point for most UAE crypto investors, but it is rarely the only place they hold digital assets. Many investors have diversified across multiple exchanges for different trading pairs, staking yields, or regulatory reasons. Others hold assets in self-custody wallets for long-term storage.
Cedrus connects to all major exchanges used in the UAE and GCC:
For on-chain assets, Cedrus also supports wallet address tracking. If you hold ETH, ERC-20 tokens, or NFTs in a MetaMask wallet, or SOL and SPL tokens in a Phantom wallet, you can add the wallet address and Cedrus will pull live balances directly from the blockchain. No API key needed -- just the public wallet address.
The result is a single dashboard that consolidates every crypto position you hold, regardless of where it lives, and displays the total alongside your non-crypto assets in AED.
The real question is not "How much crypto do I have?" It is "What percentage of my total wealth is in crypto?" You can only answer that if your crypto tracker also sees everything else. That is the difference between an exchange dashboard and a wealth tracker.
The setup takes under ten minutes. Once connected, your Binance portfolio stays in sync automatically, and your total net worth updates in real time as crypto prices move alongside your other holdings.
Join UAE and GCC investors using Cedrus to track crypto, stocks, real estate, gold, and savings — all in one app.
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