All About Coinbase API: A Complete Guide For Beginners


Source Link: https://algotrading101.com/learn/coinbase-api-guide/

Coinbase is a cryptocurrency trading platform that allows users to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies. This article will show you everything about Coinbase and all the how-tos of Coinbase API.

Coinbase API: The Basics

Before going to the how-to’s of Coinbase API, it is important to learn the basics.

What is Coinbase?

Coinbase is a reliable online cryptocurrency trading platform that allows traders to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies. This trading platform is available in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Coinbase offers a wide variety of tradable assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, USD Coin, and more.

Coinbase also allows users to trade on the go with its Coinbase Mobile App, which is available on Android and IOS.

What is Coinbase API?

Coinbase API refers to the method that allows traders to automatically trade cryptocurrencies on Coinbase using codes. 

Available clients for the Coinbase API are the following:

  • Python
  • Java
  • Rust
  • C#
  • Go
  • Ruby
  • Node.js
  • Haskell
Can I use Coinbase for free?

Creating an account in Coinbase is free. However, there are fees as you use the platform, depending on the transactions and location. 

Example fees:

  • $0.99 – If the total transaction amount is less than or equal to $10.
  • $1.49 – If the total transaction amount is more than $10 but less than or equal to $25.
  • $1.99 – If the total transaction amount is more than $25 but less than or equal to $50.
  • $2.99 – If the total transaction amount is more than $50 but less than or equal to $200.
Reasons to use Coinbase

Here are the reasons why you should use CoinbaseI:

  • Flexible trading platform
  • Several trading tools are available
  • Has education materials
  • Offers more than 25 cryptocurrencies
  • Amazing customer service
  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Has high liquidity exchanges
Reasons NOT to use Coinbase

Here are the reasons why you should NOT use Coinbase:

  • No MetaTrader platform is available
  • Not regulated in all counties
  • No official libraries
  • High fees
  • No control over the wallet key
  • Doesn’t offer all the altcoins
Coinbase API Account Types

Here are the account types for Coinbase. These accounts require a minimum deposit of $1.

Coinbase API for beginners
  • It can generate Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum wallets, and addresses.
  • Send/receive or sell/buy Bitcoin cash, Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum.
  • It securely stores the coins.
  • It can get real-time and historical price data.
  • You will receive notifications when payments arrive.
Coinbase Pro API
  • It gives traders the ability to trade various assets.
  • It has an easy-to-use interface.
  • There are several tools available, including order book and candlestick charts, limit and market orders, and portfolio overview.
Coinbase Price API
  • It is designed for professional traders.
  • Aside from the basic trading functions, it will give traders access to various liquidity pools for all Coinbase products.
How To Get Started: Coinbase API Guide
Create an Account

The first thing you need to do is to sign up for an account on the Coinbase website.

Click the “Get Started” button. Provide all the needed details and add your mobile phone number for the two-step authentication.

Obtain the API Key

To obtain the API keys,  go to your profile and settings. Click on the API section and press the “+ New API Key” button.

You will then see this:

Select the type of account you want and the permission you will have access to. Select the notification URL and input allowed IP addresses. 

Click create.

You will then get your API Key and the API Secret Key.

Install the Coinbase API

Here’s how you install the Coinbase API:

How to Retrieve Account Balance

You can retrieve the account balance on your Coinbase account. However, you have to do it one at a time. In the following example, you will learn how to add all accounts to get a full account balance sum.

Import the Coinbase API library.

Add Coinbase API Keys.

Specify the starting account balance upon which the summation process will begin.

Now, get the balance and total sum of the accounts.

How to Get Real-Time Price Data for Bitcoin

Here’s how you get the real-time prices:

Specify the currency code.

How to Retrieve Spot Price Data

You can easily do it using this command:

You can also get the spot price date of our asset with a specified date.

How to Retrieve Historical Data

In this example, let’s obtain the historical price data for Ethereum converted to the EUR value.

Import the relevant libraries:

Get the historical price data:

Here’s how to get historic rates using the Coinbase API Pro.

Install Coinbase API Pro.

Access the public client.

Obtain list of products.

Then, obtain historical rates.

How to Access Technical Indicators Like 20 SMA

Import the libraries.

Keep the data you need and eliminate the columns you don’t need.

Create pandas data frame and name the columns.

Save data as a CSV file.

Calculate the 20SMA.

And another one.

As the bta-lib calculates the 30 simple moving average, we’ll need to change it.

Add it to our data frame so we can compare the two 20 SMA.

How to Send and Receive Bitcoin

Here’s how to receive and send Bitcoin. Follow these steps:

  • To receive funds, generate a bitcoin address.
  • Send funds from the Coinbase wallet to an email or bitcoin address.
  • You can request funds through email.

Add the required library.

Create a primary account address.

Send the funds to the primary wallet.

Specify email or address.

You can also do this in your Coinbase profile.

How to Buy and Sell Bitcoin

Import the relevant libraries.

Check if the payment method is verified.

Check for the prices.

Next, do a simple price check.

Add the threshold.

Next, add the “if” statements that will conduct the buying or selling requests. On top of that, we’ll also specify the currency (BTC).

Coinbase Pro offers a trading platform that we can use. We will use their virtual sandbox and explore its features for this example.

We can specify our amount, limit, and stop price for the buy and sell options.

You can also alternate between the candlestick and line chart and also add overlays as EMA 12 and EMA 26.

To create a portfolio, click the portfolio button.

What are Access and Refresh Tokens?

Coinbase implemented an optional security feature of OAuth2 that uses the refresh tokens. The access token and refresh token are obtained in the app after the first authentication.

The access token is used to authenticate requests and expires after about two hours. When it is expired, the refresh token comes into play, allowing us to get a new access token and refresh token.

You can download the full code on this GitHub Link.

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