cointools

CoinTools

This is a collection of Ruby scripts and library classes that let you check cryptocurrency prices on various services.

Installation

CoinTools requires Ruby version 2.3 or newer.

To use the scripts from the command line, install the gem (depending on your configuration, you might need to add sudo):

gem install cointools

To use the code as a library, add it to your Gemfile:

gem 'cointools'

Cryptowatch

Cryptowat.ch is a coin charts site owned by Kraken which tracks historical cryptocurrency prices directly on many exchanges. It provides data from specific markets on specific exchanges, but no general rankings or average market prices.

To check past price of a given coin on a chosen exchange, pass the exchange and market name and a properly formatted timestamp:

cryptowatch bitfinex btcusd "2017-12-17 13:00"

To check the current price, skip the timestamp:

cryptowatch bitfinex btcusd

By default the price is printed in a verbose format that includes the requested market name and the time of the returned price. Add a -q/--quiet option to only print the price as a single number (e.g. to pass it further to another script).

You can fetch a list of available exchanges and markets using these commands:

cryptowatch --exchanges
cryptowatch --markets bithumb

In code:

require 'cointools'  # or 'cointools/cryptowatch'
cryptowatch = CoinTools::Cryptowatch.new

exchange = cryptowatch.exchanges.first

list = cryptowatch.get_markets(exchange)
market = list.select { |x| x =~ /ltc/ && x !~ /btc/ }.first.upcase

result = cryptowatch.get_price(exchange, market, Time.now - 86400)
puts "#{market} yesterday: #{result.price}"

result = cryptowatch.get_current_price(exchange, market)
puts "#{market} today: #{result.price}"

The result object contains the requested price and (for historical prices) the actual timestamp of the found price, which might slightly differ from the timestamp passed in the argument (the earlier the date, the less precise the result).

The API is rate limited to 8 seconds of CPU time per hour - you can check the api_time_spent and api_time_remaining properties of the result object to see how much time allowance you have left.

If you need to do a large amount of lookups in a short period of time, try the alternative #get_price_fast method (or -f option on the command line). This method tries to guess which data set is the most appropriate for a given point in the past and requests only that set instead of all of them, which should use significantly less API time allowance. This however relies on an undocumented API behavior, so it's not guaranteed to return data and keep working in the future.

CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap is by far the most popular site for checking coin rankings and BTC/USD prices for all coins available on the market. The API however only returns current average coin prices.

To look up a coin's price, you need to pass its name as used on CoinMarketCap:

cmcap power-ledger

Alternatively, you can pass the cryptocurrency's symbol using the -s or --symbol parameter:

cmcap -s powr

However, be aware that coin symbols are not unique on CoinMarketCap - there are at least a few examples of duplicates. In such case, the first coin that matches (probably the older one) will be returned.

By default the price is printed in a verbose format that includes the requested coin symbol and the time of the returned price. Add a -q/--quiet option to only print the price as a single number (e.g. to pass it further to another script).

You can also use the -b or --btc-price flag to request a price in BTC instead of USD:

cmcap power-ledger -b

Or you can request the price in one of the ~30 other supported fiat currencies with -c or --convert-to:

cmcap request-network -cEUR

You can print a list of supported fiat currencies with cmcap --fiat-currencies.

Same things in code:

require 'cointools'  # or 'cointools/coinmarketcap'
cmc = CoinTools::CoinMarketCap.new

p CoinTools::CoinMarketCap::FIAT_CURRENCIES

ltc = cmc.get_price('litecoin')
puts "LTC: #{ltc.usd_price} USD / #{ltc.btc_price} BTC"

xmr = cmc.get_price_by_symbol('xmr')
puts "XMR: #{xmr.usd_price} USD / #{xmr.btc_price} BTC"

eth = cmc.get_price('ethereum', convert_to: 'EUR')
puts "ETH: #{eth.converted_price} EUR"

The soft rate limit for the API is 30 requests per minute (for API v2).

Note: since in the v2 API specific coin tickers can only be looked up using CoinMarketCap's internal numeric ids (e.g. Ethereum = 1027), both lookup methods available here - by the coin name ("slug") and symbol - have to first download a /listings JSON with a mapping of all coins on the site. The result of that call is cached in a CoinTools::CoinMarketCap object, so if you do many lookups in code, in one go or over some period of time, it's recommended to reuse the object instead of recreating it each time.

The API only allows one additional currency apart from USD, so if you pass a convert_to parameter, btc_price will not be returned, only converted_price.

Getting all coin prices

You can also download the whole table of 1600+ coins listed on CoinMarketCap using the get_all_prices method. The method also takes a convert_to parameter, which works as described above. This method has to use paging to download data in batches and currently makes around 16 calls (which takes about half a minute), so do not call it repeatedly or you might go over the rate limit.

You can pass a block to this method to receive each batch of coins as they arrive. Take into account however that coins are not sorted by rank, but by numeric id (or roughly by creation date), so if you want e.g. top 100 coins, you still need to download the whole list. This is mostly intended to let you track progress in some way, e.g.:

require 'cointools/coinmarketcap'
cmc = CoinTools::CoinMarketCap.new

coins = cmc.get_all_prices { |l| print '.' }
puts

coins.first(50).each do |c|
  puts c.symbol.ljust(5) + c.market_cap.to_i.to_s.rjust(15)
end

CoinCap

CoinCap.io is a site similar to CoinMarketCap with an API that includes historical coin prices (with decreasing precision the further into the past you look).

To check past price of a given coin, pass the coin's symbol and a properly formatted timestamp:

coincap xmr "2018-04-01 13:00"

To check the current price, skip the timestamp:

coincap xmr

By default the price is printed in a verbose format that includes the requested coin symbol and the time of the returned price. Add a -q/--quiet option to only print the price as a single number (e.g. to pass it further to another script).

You can also use the -b or --btc-price flag to request a price in BTC instead of USD, or -e or --eur-price for EUR:

coincap xmr -b
coincap xmr -e

These are however only supported for current prices - past prices are only listed in USD.

In code:

require 'cointools'  # or 'cointools/coincap'
coincap = CoinTools::CoinCap.new

result = coincap.get_price('XMR', Time.now - 86400)
puts "XMR yesterday: $#{result.usd_price} (#{result.time})"

result = coincap.get_current_price('XMR')
puts "XMR today: $#{result.usd_price} / €#{result.eur_price} / ₿#{result.btc_price}"

The result object contains the requested price and (for historical prices) the actual timestamp of the found price, which might slightly differ from the timestamp passed in the argument (the earlier the date, the less precise the result).

At the moment there don't seem to be any official rate limits for the API.

Credits & contributing

Copyright © 2018 Kuba Suder. Licensed under MIT License.

If you'd like to help me extend the scripts with some additional features or add support for new services, send me a pull request.