10 Best Cryptocurrency APIs for Developers

If you’re a developer, odds are you use cryptocurrency application programming interfaces (APIs) to develop apps that use crypto functionality as well as interact with crypto services. You probably also use crypto APIs to access crypto data and perform cryptocurrency-related tasks, including tracking prices, managing transactions, and exchanging cryptocurrencies.

There are thousands of cryptocurrencies available on the market. And as the demand for cryptocurrency continues to increase, so too do crypto APIs.

To help you on your quest to find the right crypto APIs for your needs, let’s take a look at 10 of the best cryptocurrency APIs on the market.

Binance API

The Binance API is a set of features and tools that the Binance cryptocurrency exchange provides to let developers automate their trading activities. You can use the Binance API to access market data in real-time, execute trades, manage your accounts, and view your trading histories.

The Binance API lets you create tools to manage your portfolio as well as build crypto trading bots and other apps that need access to the Binance exchange’s services. And you can use your favorite programming language, including Python, Java, Node.js, .NET, and Ruby, to connect to Binance servers.

Since the security of their data and transactions is also top of mind for developers, the Binance API offers encryption protocols and secure authentication methods. And if that’s not enough, you can implement two-factor authentication for added security.

With Binance’s free API, you can interact with the Binance platform and build custom trading apps. However, this free API requires you to comply with some usage limits and policies, including rate limits. If you don’t adhere to these limits and policies, you can lose access to the API.

If the free API doesn’t give you what you need, you might want to opt for Binance’s premium API because it offers higher limits on use and other features.

Pros:

• You can access one of the largest markets.
• Users can buy, sell, and cancel transactions via the API.
• Since this API offers a high-volume limit, you’re able to make many requests per minute to retrieve pertinent data.
• Offers a free API.

Cons:

• Only 1,200 request weight per minute (not quite the same as 1,200 requests); 50 orders per 10 seconds
• Your IP will be temporarily banned if you go over order, call, or transaction limits.
• Binance won’t lift the temporary ban until the banning period is over, even if you fix the coding issues that caused you to exceed the order, call, or transaction limits.

CoinMarketCap API

Acquired by Binance in 2020, the CoinMarketCap API is a set of RESTful JSON endpoints that lets you access the most up-to-date exchange and crypto market data, including market capitalization, trading volumes, and prices. You can even access historical cryptocurrency data from as far back as 2013.

With this API, you can build charting tools as well as software to test trading strategies based on historical market data so you can predict how a trading system might behave in the future

The CoinMarketCap API lets you create custom services and apps that integrate with the crypto market, helping you to uncover trends and insights so you can stay one step ahead of your competitors.

The CoinMarketCap API offers a free basic plan but only gives you access to nine market data endpoints. The CoinMarketCap API supports Python, Ruby, Objective-C, NodeJS, PHP, Java (Android), C# (.NET), and cURL programming languages.

Pros:

• Offers access to historical cryptocurrency data from 2013 to the present.
• Gathers data on all currently available cryptocurrencies.
• Gives you numerous ways to access and assess trends in the market.
• Also works as an exchange program.

Cons:

• With the free plan, you only have limited access to the API., which includes access to nine market data endpoints, 10,000 call credits per month, no historical data, and only for personal use.

CoinGecko API

A free and open-source API, the CoinGecko API offers several endpoints that you can use to retrieve different types of data, including crypto prices, market capitalization, and exchange trading volumes. This data is great for building numerous applications, such as trading bots, price alert systems, crypto portfolio tracking, and more.

The CoinGecko API acts as a bridge between external apps and the CoinGecko platform, so you can automatically retrieve real-time and historical crypto data.

CoinGecko API’s various endpoints, i.e., price endpoints, exchange rate endpoints, market data endpoints, developer endpoints, and social media endpoints, let you query cryptocurrency data in different ways.

CoinGecko API is popular with the developer community because it’s designed to be reliable, versatile, and user-friendly. Although CoinGecko’s basic API is free, you should upgrade to get the most out of this crypto API. The CoinGecko API supports several programming languages, including JavaScript, Java, Python, Ruby, and PHP.

Pros

• You can integrate CoinGecko’s API into your apps to get info about cryptocurrencies.
• Offers a free version for testing purposes and personal use.

Cons

• The rate limit of the free API is 10-30 calls per minute.
• Your IP will automatically be rate limited if you exceed the limits of the free API.
• To get the most out of this API, you’ll need to upgrade.

CryptoCompare API

Like the other crypto APIs, the CryptoCompare API lets you retrieve data on cryptocurrencies, including market capitalization, volumes, and prices. This API also gives you data on past prices, technical indicators, exchange rates, top-performing coins, top crypto news, crypto trade data, social data, and more.

This API is a good choice if you want to build high-use apps or apps for large enterprises. And you can rest easy knowing that all transactions, as well as user connections to the API, are secure. The CryptoCompare API team performs periodic API testing, monthly exchange reviews, and anomaly reporting to ensure the data is accurate, reliable, and authentic.

The CryptoCompare API offers a developer portal and a central hub that contains everything you need to manage your API key, upgrade your subscription, view your usage, review your API logs, and manage account-level configurations, such as notifications.

Although there’s a free version of the API for individual use, you should upgrade to one of the. If you’re building larger apps, you should upgrade to paid subscriptions that can scale.

Pros:

• You get an extensive range of data.
• Endpoints are highly reliable.
• Capacity for high-volume demand.
• The data transfer process is secured via TLS encryption.

?Cons:

• Fee-based subscriptions can become costly pretty quickly.
• You only get access to additional data displays as you increase your subscription level.

Coinlayer API

This API gives you exchange rate data for more than 385 coins in real-time, requested using HTTP GET and delivered in JSON format. It also gathers data from more than 25 reliable crypto exchanges worldwide, ensuring accuracy and reliability. The API’s enhanced algorithm lets you use crypto data more efficiently. With the Coinlayer API, you can retrieve historical data from as far back as 2011.

The Coinlayer API provides six API endpoints, including the conversion endpoint that converts amounts between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies.

The free plan offers you 1,000 monthly requests, historical data, and hourly updates. The paid subscription plans give you access to more requests, faster updates, target currencies, and more. Coinlayer lets you upgrade or downgrade whatever subscription package you select at any time.

Pros

• Provides bank-grade security.
• Offers real-time crypto exchange data.
• You don’t have a daily limit on API calls.
• Easy-to-read documentation.

Cons

• The free version is limited.
• No support for the free version.
• Hourly updates only with the basic paid subscription plan.

CoinAPI

CoinAPI connects with more than 339 cryptocurrency exchanges. You can access the CoinAPI data using simple HTTP RESTful API. And you can also access real-time market data streaming through FIX and WebSocket protocols. Since CoinAPI offers these three different protocols: REST, FIX, and WebSocket, you won’t have to worry about an exchange’s interface and what it supports.

Coin API also provides software development kits (SDKs) for the most popular languages, including Python, R, Matlab, C#, C++, .NET, Java, Ruby, and more. Developers can access CoinAPI’s database of historical data that goes back to 2010 as well as 20 TB of raw and preprocessed market data that they can use for research and analysis.

The free tier only allows you 100 requests per day, and there’s no support and no WebSocket or FIX access. If you want WebSocket, FIX access, and priority email support, you have to shell out the big bucks for the top tier, which is $599 monthly.

Pros:

• Easy to manage, optimize.
• Supports numerous exchanges and currencies.

Cons:

• A bit more costly than its competitors.
• Limits on daily requests. The top tier allows 100K requests per day.

Coinbase API

Coinbase API is able to act as a wallet, an exchange API, and other crypto functions. Using the Coinbase API, you can give your users the most up-to-date crypto information, including data about a variety of digital currencies, so that they can make informed buying and trading decisions.

The Coinbase API also requests information on price fluxations, monitors currency prices, and more. You can benefit by using a Coinbase API because its pre-generated source code makes it relatively simple to integrate key Coinbase features. And by using the Coinbase API, you’ll save numerous hours of work coding and testing your code connections.

Developed using Node.js, Coinbase API supports popular cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash. This API is available in numerous programming languages and SDKs, including Python, Ruby, Node.js, cURL, and Objective-C. You can use Coinbase API at no cost if you only need 10,000 requests per hour. However, if you need more advanced features, try one of the premium options, such as CoinbasePro.

Pros

• Offers real-time notifications.
• Provides free historical data.
• Direct wallet connection between users.
• A great choice if you’re a developer just starting out.

Cons

• A comparatively lower number of currencies compared to other platforms.

CoinCap API

This API gathers real-time data on market activity and pricing for more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies. Because CoinCap API gathers exchange data from thousands of markets, it can provide you with accurate and transparent data regarding asset availability and prices. However, it’s not a reliable source of historical data.

CoinCap API offers several datasets with insights into crypto markets and might be the best if you’re a solo developer building personal projects and testing app ideas or working with a small team. CoinCap API supports REST and WebSocket APIs, and it includes a free converter so you can convert cryptos.

Pros:

• Easy to use and accessible.
• There’s no transaction cost required.
• There’s no sign-up or account required.

Cons:

• Some metrics are missing.
• No support team.
• High leverage costs.

Swapzone API

Swapzone provides a cryptocurrency exchange API that allows companies focused on cryptocurrencies to integrate the features of an instant crypto exchange aggregator and realize income from every transaction performed via the API. The Swapzone crypto exchange API aggregates the exchange rate data for more than 1,600 cryptocurrencies in real-time, including Binance Coin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin.

The Swapzone API aggregates crypto-to-crypto exchange offers for supported crypto pairs via the APIs of more than 15 crypto exchange providers and compiles that data into one REST API. The Swapzone REST API simplifies the data exchange between Swapzone and any platform that uses it. Through the API key, users can make the best deal swaps without leaving your app or website – and you get a commission for each swap.

To get started, you have to sign up for a personal partner account, and then Swapzone gives you the necessary documentation to help you easily integrate the API key into your platform.

Since the Swapzone API is embedded via REST technology, you can introduce it into a workflow (desktop or mobile app) without having to do any additional coding. A white-label solution, this API adapts Swapzone’s services to any of your crypto projects, giving your clients the best-rate instant swaps natively built into your interface. Swapzone API integrates with any crypto service, website, or application.

Pros

• Automatically selects the best rate for clients.
• 15-minute average exchange time, depending on the provider.
• Offers stability and uninterrupted operation of its API services.

Cons

• Some crypto exchanges aren’t supported.

Coinpaprika API

With Coinpaprika API, you can leverage the data from more than 500 sources and more than 25 endpoints covering thousands of digital assets. This API offers you aggregated global crypto market metrics since 2010. Coinpaprika API was designed specifically to create a user-friendly interface for crypto developers.

You can use Coinpaprika API’s open-source libraries for popular programming languages, i.e., PHP, Python, Swift, Javascript, Go, Rust, C#, and Kotlin. Additionally, the Coinpaprika API offers you SDKs for popular programming languages, such as PHP, Go, Python, Rust, JS, and NodeJS.

The Coinpaprika API allows you to access accurate historical crypto price data for analysis, backtest your investment strategies, and track your portfolio. Coinpaprika provides data via a REST API, and the company is developing a WebSockets streaming interface.

With the free Coinpaprika API plan (for personal and non-commercial projects), you get 25,000 calls per month for 2,500 crypto assets. This includes one year of daily historical data. If you’re a serious crypto developer, you should opt for one of the paid plans that start at $99 per month.

Pros

• 9% uptime and response time guarantee through service-level agreements.
• Offers real-time customer support via Slack.

Cons

• The free plan only offers one year of historical data.

The Bottom Line

Cryptocurrency APIs are critical tools for developers who want to build apps that use crypto functionality. That’s because they allow you to easily access crypto data and perform cryptocurrency-related tasks. But since hundreds of crypto APIs are on the market, it’s up to you to determine which crypto API best suits your requirements.

But keep in mind that it’s not just about general features and functionality. You also have to be sure the APIs you select can meet the needs of your projects. So you should focus more on the functionality you need rather than opt for the crypto APIs that are the most versatile. You might also want to consider highly scalable crypto APIs in the event the scopes of your projects increase.