Realtime Cryptocurrency Rates API with coinlayer

By  on  
coinlayer

Last year when cryptocurrencies were gaining massively in value each month, I badly wanted to create a personal web project which would let me quickly buy and sell crypto outside of brokers like Coinbase; the problem I ran into was not having a reliable API for doing so.  I recently discovered coinlayer, an API which provides rates for hundreds of cryptocurrencies using values from dozens of cryptocurrency exchanges.

Quick Hits

  • coinlayer is free to use!
  • coinlayer provides rates for almost 300 cryptocurrencies
  • coinlayer provides rates from 25+ exchanges
  • coinlayer's API is well-designed and very easy to use
  • coinlayer supports JSONP

coinlayer

Using coinlayer

After getting your free API key, it's time to get started with querying the API for cryptocurrency rates.  Let's use cURL to grab the most basic rate result:

curl https://api.coinlayer.com/live?access_key=YOUR_KEY

You'll get a simple listing of cryptocurrency values for USD, which is the default base currency:

{
  "success": true,
  "terms": "https://coinlayer.com/terms",
  "privacy": "https://coinlayer.com/privacy",
  "timestamp": 1529571067,
  "target": "USD",
  "rates": {
    // ...
    "ADL": 121.5,
    "ADX": 0.427854,
    "ADZ": 0.02908,
    "AE": 2.551479,
    "AGI": 0.12555,
    "AIB": 0.005626,
    "AIDOC": 0.02605,
    // ...
  }
}

You can request crypto rates by date with from and to parameters, even providing an amount of a given cryptocurrency to multiply:

curl https://api.coinlayer.com/convert?from=BTC&to=ETH&amount=1&access_key=YOUR_KEY

You can also request data from a given time frame in the case you want to build a chart or track your profit:

# It's been a good month :)
curl https://api.coinlayer.com/timeframe?start_date=2018-07-01&end_date=2018-07-24&symbols=BTC,ETH&access_key=YOUR_KEY

/*
{
  "success": true,
  "terms": "https://coinlayer.com/terms",
  "privacy": "https://coinlayer.com/privacy",
  "timeframe": true,
  "start_date": "2018-07-01",
  "end_date": "2018-07-24",
  "target": "USD",
  "rates": {
    "2018-07-01": {
      "BTC": 6903.113849,
      "ETH": 383.02749
    },
    "2018-07-02": {
      "BTC": 7111.72678,
      "ETH": 387.273437
    },
    "2018-07-03": {
      "BTC": 7490.777653,
      "ETH": 421.655884
    },
    [...]
  }
}
*/

You can get extended rate information, like volume, high, and low using this API endpoint:

curl https://api.coinlayer.com/change?start_date=2018-07-01&end_date=2018-07-24&symbols=BTC,ETH&access_key=YOUR_KEY

/*
{
  "success": true,
  "terms": "https://coinlayer.com/terms",
  "privacy": "https://coinlayer.com/privacy",
  "change": true,
  "start_date": "2018-07-01",
  "end_date": "2018-07-24",
  "target": "USD",
  "rates": {
    "BTC": {
      "start_rate": 6903.113849,
      "end_rate": 9245.982724,
      "change": 2342.86887,
      "change_pct": 1.33939305
    },
    "ETH": {
      "start_rate": 383.02749,
      "end_rate": 670.440229,
      "change": 287.412739,
      "change_pct": 1.75037105
    }
  }
} 
*/

coinlayer goes the extra mile to provide support for JSONP:

// set endpoint and your API access key
const endpoint = 'live'
const access_key = 'YOUR_KEY';

// get the most recent exchange rates via the "live" endpoint:
$.ajax({
    url: 'https://api.coinlayer.com/api/' + endpoint + '?access_key=' + access_key,   
    dataType: 'jsonp',
    success: function(json) {
        // exchange rata data is stored in json.rates
        console.log(json.rates.BTC);
    }
});
coinlayer

I love having a service that provides cryptocurrency rates I can trust to be secure, reliable, and flexible.  APIs can be a nightmare but coinlayer's is so easy to use that you'll probably never need another crypto API again.  If only every API was so excellent!

Recent Features

  • By
    Being a Dev Dad

    I get asked loads of questions every day but I'm always surprised that they're rarely questions about code or even tech -- many of the questions I get are more about non-dev stuff like what my office is like, what software I use, and oftentimes...

  • By
    Chris Coyier’s Favorite CodePen Demos

    David asked me if I'd be up for a guest post picking out some of my favorite Pens from CodePen. A daunting task! There are so many! I managed to pick a few though that have blown me away over the past few months. If you...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Do / Undo Functionality with MooTools

    We all know that do/undo functionality is a God send for word processing apps. I've used those terms so often that I think of JavaScript actions in terms of "do" an "undo." I've put together a proof of concept Do/Undo class with MooTools. The MooTools...

  • By
    Fx.Rotate:  Animated Element Rotation with MooTools

    I was recently perusing the MooTools Forge and I saw a neat little plugin that allows for static element rotation: Fx.Rotate. Fx.Rotate is an extension of MooTools' native Fx class and rotates the element via CSS within each A-grade browser it...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!