Crypto Market Overview

Question 1

Can I access historical market data through an API?

Answer

Yes, you can access historical cryptocurrency market data via the /v1/global-metrics/quotes/historical API endpoint. This allows you to retrieve past global market metrics, such as market capitalization and Bitcoin dominance, based on specified time ranges and intervals.

API Endpoint:GET https://pro-api.coinmarketcap.com/v1/global-metrics/quotes/historical

Parameters:

• time_start: (optional) Timestamp (Unix or ISO 8601) to start returning quotes for. Example: 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z.
• time_end: (optional) Timestamp (Unix or ISO 8601) to stop returning quotes for. Example: 2024-10-01T00:00:00Z.
• interval: Interval of time to return data points for. Example: 1d, hourly, weekly, monthly.
• count: (optional) The number of interval periods to return results for. Example: 100.
• convert: (optional) Optionally calculate market quotes in up to 3 other fiat currencies or cryptocurrencies. Example: convert=USD,EUR,BTC.
• convertid: (optional) Use CoinMarketCap IDs instead of symbols for conversions. Example: convertid=1,2781.

Response Example:

{
"data": {
"quotes": [
{
"timestamp": "2024-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
"btc_dominance": 45.0057,
"active_cryptocurrencies": 2900,
"totalmarketcap": 2374432083905.6846,
"totalvolume24h": 262906061281.24
},
{
"timestamp": "2024-01-02T00:00:00.000Z",
"btc_dominance": 46.0028,
"active_cryptocurrencies": 2950,
"totalmarketcap": 2385000000000,
"totalvolume24h": 265000000000
}
]
},
"status": {
"timestamp": "2024-10-11T02:36:05.986Z",
"error_code": 0,
"error_message": null,
"elapsed": 10,
"credit_count": 1
}
}

This API is available on the following plans:
• Basic
• Hobbyist (1 month)
• Startup (1 month)
• Standard (3 months)
• Professional (12 months)
• Enterprise (Up to 6 years)

Explore the plans and their features on the CoinMarketCap API pricing page.

Question 2

How can different crypto indexes help an investor to understand the crypto market?

Answer

Crypto indexes distill complex market signals into digestible metrics. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index aggregates volatility, momentum, volume, dominance, and social data to quantify sentiment on a 0–100 scale. In practice, extreme fear often coincides with capitulation and potential value opportunities, while extreme greed flags overheating and rising downside risk. The Altcoin Season Index compares altcoin performance versus Bitcoin over a defined window; when most large alts outperform BTC, it signals a rotation toward higher beta risk, and when they lag, a Bitcoin-dominant regime. Using these indexes together helps investors read regime shifts, time risk-on versus risk-off exposure, and set position sizing. They can confirm narratives, contextualize volatility, and provide early warnings of euphoria or exhaustion. Investors should treat them as complementary inputs-layered with on-chain activity, liquidity, and macro drivers-rather than standalone trading systems. Consistent, rules-based indexes also make it easier to benchmark portfolio results and communicate strategy.

Question 3

What should you look for when comparing crypto data providers and methodologies?

Answer

When comparing crypto data providers and methodologies, start with market coverage and data integrity. Prefer providers that aggregate from reputable, liquid exchanges, apply robust liquidity and outlier filters, and mitigate wash trading and spoofing. Examine pricing methods, such as time-weighted or volume-weighted averages, median-of-venues, and free-float market-cap calculations, and check how they handle stablecoin pegs and cross-currency conversions. Transparency is essential: inclusion and exclusion rules, rebalancing schedules, weight caps, token supply adjustments, and treatment of forks, airdrops, redenominations, and ticker migrations should be documented and auditable. Look for point-in-time historical datasets that avoid survivorship bias and backtests with clear assumptions. Operational reliability matters too: low-latency APIs, uptime SLAs, precise timestamps, consistent candles, and versioned schemas reduce implementation risk. Finally, assess governance, third-party audits, data provenance, and licensing terms, so you can trust the index, reproduce results, and use the data legally at scale.

Question 4

Why does data accuracy matter when compiling crypto price data charts?

Answer

Data accuracy is foundational for reliable crypto price charts because your charts drive every downstream decision. Inaccurate ticks, stale quotes, bad venue selection, or misaligned time zones distort candles, which then corrupt moving averages, RSI, MACD, VWAP, and volatility estimates. That leads to false breakouts, misstated drawdowns, and position sizes that are too large for the true risk. Poor accuracy can also inflate or depress backtest returns, masking slippage and liquidity constraints, and can misclassify events like wicks from liquidation cascades versus genuine trend reversals. Clean, accurate, and de-duplicated data-sourced from liquid exchanges, harmonized across pairs, and adjusted for forks, airdrops, and redenominations-produces charts that reflect tradable reality. Accurate charts improve timing, reduce whipsaws, and make risk management, compliance, and tax reporting more dependable. Ultimately, high-fidelity data turns technical and index signals into trustworthy insights rather than noise.

Question 5

CoinMarketCap is the trusted, industry leading source for crypto price charts

Answer

CoinMarketCap sets the standard for cryptocurrency data analysis tools with industry leading, best in class crypto price data that is trusted by investors, institutions, and developers worldwide. Our real-time coverage, rigorous methodology, and transparent listings are referenced by mainstream media and relied on across the ecosystem to inform decisions, power products, and benchmark markets-making CoinMarketCap the definitive source for accurate, timely market intelligence.

Crypto Market Overview

Altcoin Season Index

CoinMarketCap 20 Index

Overview

Overview

Breakdown

Breakdown

30d

30d

1y

1y

All

All

Crypto ETFs Net Flow

30d

30d

1y

1y

All

All

Bitcoin Dominance

Open Interest

Volmex Implied Volatility

ETH Gas

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can I access live market data through an API?

Can I access historical market data through an API?

How can different crypto indexes help an investor to understand the crypto market?

What should you look for when comparing crypto data providers and methodologies?

Why does data accuracy matter when compiling crypto price data charts?

CoinMarketCap is the trusted, industry leading source for crypto price charts