Free Crypto APIs for Crypto Enthusiasts

Introduction

The spectacular growth of Bitcoin and altcoins has made cryptocurrencies the talk of the town this year.

However, cryptocurrency's uses go well beyond merely transferring programmed money. Developers aiming to build decentralized apps on the Ethereum web are increasingly adopting smart contracts and the Solidity programming language.

Solidity is still a relatively new language, so you may not have had the chance to learn it yet. Regardless, there is a plethora of cryptocurrency APIs to choose from that will inspire you to create amazing things.

These API services provide a wealth of data for statistical modeling, with prices ranging from free for hobbyists to more costly business subscriptions. In addition, parameters like total issued coins, maximum supply, and market capitalization might provide useful information. In this post, we'll go through a few different crypto API providers and what to expect from each of them.

CEX.IO

CEX.IO is a regulated crypto exchange with a global user base of over 4 million people. WebSocket and REST are two options for their crypto trading and exchange API.

You may use their WebSocket API to:

Check your account balance.

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View open orders, place new orders, cancel orders, and view order history

You may use their REST API to:

Access pricing charts and receive real-time price feeds.

View your account balance and trading history.

View and cancel your open orders by pair.

Pros

Their WebSocket API is better for placing orders and collecting market data, while their REST API is better for interacting with your trading orders. Because of their rich documentation, getting started with the CEX.IO API is simple. Their APIs are accessible to both developers and traders. The advantage is the interface, the rate limit of 600 transactions per second, the monitoring of an unlimited number of markets, and instantaneous trades, without human emotions and errors.

Pricing Model

CEX.IO APIs are free to use.

CoinGecko

The CoinGecko API is a huge repository of cryptocurrency data for a large number of coins. CoinGecko maintains a database of over 10,000 coins (which is constantly expanding) and gives data for each as part of their free API.

The CoinGecko API also gives total supply, circulating supply, maximum supply, market capitalization, and many other important indicators in addition to the price. The accessible price data is restricted to 7d sparkline data with 168 data points (hourly prices) and minute precision data (for a single day at a time.)

Pros

The CoinGecko API has more announcements than any other cryptocurrency API currently available. They offer statistics on token contracts, segmented by category, ecosystem, and exchanges, as well as data on derivatives. APIs for proprietary data, such as CoinGecko trending coins and status updates, are also available through the CoinGecko API.

Cons

One disadvantage of historical data is that anything less than daily OHLC requires numerous calls, and resolution less than hourly requires a call-per-day period with custom aggregate. To put it another way, to collect 15-minute resolution data on a daily scale, you must make one call every day, combine data across the necessary period, and then aggregate it to the desired sub-daily interval (e.g. 15-minute.)

Pricing Model

The CoinGecko data plans are divided primarily by API call volume, with free plans allowing 50 calls per minute via shared infrastructure and pro plans allowing 500 calls per minute with a monthly maximum of 5MM calls. For individuals with larger capacity data demands, custom plans start at $10,000 per year.

CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap is one of the most popular crypto pricing history providers. They have over 15,000 assets listed and provide a wealth of information for each. The CoinMarketCap API options range from free plans with 11 endpoints and 10,000 monthly calls to Enterprise subscriptions with configurable call limitations and more than 29 endpoints beginning at $699 per month and higher.

Pros

The CoinMarketCap API offers a wealth of information, including trending assets, top gainers and losers, and "metadata" as connections to an asset's website, social media, contract address(es), and more. This API's documentation is extensive, reflecting the numerous endpoints and customizable parameters offered.

Cons

Most of the CoinMarketCap API endpoints are only available to premium plans.  The Basic Plan includes a "map" of all coins, basic information, the most recent quotes, and worldwide macro market statistics. In addition, free accounts must register for an API key in order to use the CoinMarketCap API. OHLCV data is available through CoinMarketCap's API, but only on the Startup plans, which cost $79 per month.

Pricing Model

Free, Hobbyist ($29/mo. ), Startup ($79/mo. ), Standard ($299/mo. ), Professional ($699/mo. ), and Custom Enterprise options are available through CoinMarketCap's API. The Free plan gives customers a meager 10,000 API credits per day, limited to 300, and historical data is restricted to the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise plans. Users may only access the full 6 years of historical data with the Enterprise plan.

Conclusion

The API providers listed above are only a few of the numerous alternatives accessible today. Simple spot-quote OHLC data to more complex analytical data and contract address analytics are all available through the Crypto API. Before deciding on an API, browse through the documentation to get a sense of what data is accessible, any rate-limiting difficulties, and the price for the data you want to consume. If we are talking about crypto trading APIs we are definitely recommending CEX.IO API.