Best Crypto APIs for Data Collection [2022]

Is it a coincidence that all of the best suppliers of blockchain data start with the letter "C"? I think not! With the large amount of websites reporting alleged ways to get rich quick in the post-ICO boom world, where is a trader/data collector to get real information? You COULD go exchange by exchange, aggregating all of their data on your own and processing it yourself, but how do you pick out reputable exchanges from shady ones? How do you know which trading pairs are giving you a fair price with minimal spread?

In this article, I put together a short list of what I have found to be some of the best blockchain websites in terms of the amount and variety of data they release in the form of API endpoints.

Let's start with a basic overview of how the different services compare to each other by checking out the table below. Then we'll go into more detail for each one:

CryptoCompare

CryptoCompare is a one-stop-shop for all things related to the blockchain. The front page boasts your traditional market metrics for top crypto projects, reviews on different crypto related services (such as wallets, gambling sites, etc.), and even content on how to get into the blockchain space. Navigating through the site, you can find all kinds of miscellaneous information related to blockchain like mining products and pools, how they aggregate data across exchanges and trading pairs, and even research related to exchange benchmarking.

Digging into the API documentation, there is just as much variety in the endpoints listed. In addition to having a generous amount of free API calls per month, many of these endpoints don't require an API key, and none of them are freemium priced. The only time you would have to pay is if you exceed 100,000 calls in a month.

In addition to your standard data like OHLCV, L1, and L2 data, CryptoCompare allows you to even generate a custom average based on exchanges of your choosing via a call like below:

https://min-api.cryptocompare.com/data/generateAvg?fsym=BTC&tsym=EUR&e=Kraken,Binance

Other special features include:

• Trading Signals (Powered by IntoTheBlock)
• Aggregated Social Data (From Reddit, Facebook, and GitHub)
• Links to Crypto Related News
• Data on Price Aggregation Methodology
• Data on Crypto Services like Cards, Wallets, Casinos, Miners, etc.

Go dig into their documentation if you wanna try these out for yourself, or head over to our tutorial on how to get started using API Connector with CryptoCompare.

CoinAPI

CoinAPI provides data across a wide range of exchanges. While lacking any kind of documentation on aggregation, many of their API endpoints allow you to handpick exchange-type-trading pair combinations for your own aggregation. This probably makes it a less popular option considering many of the other popular blockchain services aggregate price data on their own proprietary algorithms (saving you the headache of doing it yourself!), and the price aggregation they do perform is opaque.

CoinAPI also doesn't have much to offer other than the standard OHLCV, L1, and L2 data, making it unique from the other services in this article. Additionally, their system for identifying these exchange-type-trading pairs can be a little bit tricky to unpack at first, but you can figure it out by carefully reading their documentation or heading over to our tutorial for a more detailed analysis by us.

One endpoint I found particularly interesting was the "Latest Data" endpoint, which allows you to collect data for "allegedly" up to one minute ago. By decoding their symbol system, you could use this to look across all markets and pairs supported by CoinAPI and get a feel for what is trending right now on which platforms. You can try yourself by entering the following URL into API Connector (plus your API key) and giving it a spin.

https://rest.coinapi.io/v1/quotes/latest

Using our dashboard, you can get a nice summary of hot trades across CoinAPI's markets that looks something like this:

CoinGecko

The best things in life are free, and CoinGecko certainly believes that when it comes to crypto-related data! Because they believe that "data should be democratized", they also allow a large rate limit of 100 requests/minute (which is plenty for us folks here at API Connector). CoinGecko is a great site to visit for assessing the worth of all kinds of blockchain projects. Instead of relying on solely market cap, volume, and asset price, CoinGecko also tracks metrics related to the blockchain itself, its community, and code development. On top of having unlimited calls, CoinGecko actually makes a lot of their site data available via their API (though unfortunately not all of it). Data data data!

Like CryptoCompare, CoinGecko also offers a bench-marking system for grading exchanges performance. Additionally, they even grade trading pairs across exchanges so you can find out where the "safest" place is to make your trades.

For access to basic exchange information, you can use a GET request like below to get Trust Scores, 24h volume, and other data for every exchange listed in CoinGecko:

https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/exchanges

Some of the other unique data channels CoinGecko gives you access to include:

• Crypto Index Data (You can read more about their own index MAGIX here)
• Derivative Markets
• Upcoming Blockchain Events and Status Updates

Go check out their documentation for yourself, or head on over to our tutorial to learn how to use CoinGecko's endpoints in API Connector.

CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap, like some of the other blockchain data services, hosts a plethora of useful metrics related to the blockchain industry in addition to standard market data. These include their own index (CMC200Index), the blockchain explorer, "gainers and losers", and an aggregated news feed. While these are indeed interesting, most of the API endpoints either don't feature these interesting data channels, or are hidden behind a paywall. In fact, most of the available endpoints are behind a paywall, leaving only the standard up-to-date price/volume data and a few others available to non-subscription users. They also have a very low number of requests compared to other services, making them not great if you need to call large amounts of data.

Anyway, let's focus on the positives! Two other useful endpoints for free users include access to 3rd party FCAS ratings for all supported coins and global metrics such as Bitcoin/Ethereum dominance. Actually, the FCAS ratings are quite useful as they are updated daily and based on a number of things like on-chain activity, developer activity, and good ol' risk and liquidity. You can read more about how they define their metric here.

One unique feature I found in the documentation was the ability to filter assets based on their type, i.e. utility tokens or security tokens. This can be accomplished with an API endpoint like the following (don't forget to put your API key in the header!):

https://pro-api.coinmarketcap.com/v1/cryptocurrency/listings/latest?cryptocurrency_type=tokens

You can dig more into their documentation yourself to see what data you can scrape together, or you can go take a look at our write-up to learn more about how to integrate CoinMarketCap with API Connector. You could even make your own nifty dashboard like we did here: