Publish a REST API for basic market data (ticker)
Closed this issue · 3 comments
I know @pinhopro opposes a REST API:
Unfortunately, most of those websites keep pooling the website for more data. This is just not right, that is why I will never release any public REST api.
I think you should reconsider this. Sure he is right, those websites should use Websockets instead of pooling a REST API. However, Websockets are not a good solution in all scenarios (to each problem its solution). I would like to add bitex based exchanges to Boilr (check drpout/boilr#170). Boilr fetches the last value with a given update interval (e.g. 5 min). On mobile apps, such as Boilr, you should not leave a Websocket open in background as it would waste energy and bandwidth resources. Opening it every time you need to fetch last value isn't good either, (depending on the implementation) you may have to wait until the next trade takes places, which can take an indefinite amount of time. In this scenario a REST API is the best solution.
As @amingilani correctly said:
Web server load is only a scalability issue. If it's that large a problem, a separate instance can easily be spawned to deal with that part of the problem 😕
Furthermore, you can always block consecutive REST API calls coming from the same IP address (e.g. cap it to one request per second per IP).
I already reconsidered.... I am working on a version that will offer a REST API.
Hi @dllud
Here is our public api.
Ticker - https://api.blinktrade.com/api/v1/[CURRENCY]/ticker?crypto_currency=BTC
Order book - https://api.blinktrade.com/api/v1/[CURRENCY]/orderbook?crypto_currency=BTC
Trades - https://api.blinktrade.com/api/v1/[CURRENCY]/trades?crypto_currency=BTC?since=[unix_timestamp]
You should replace the Currency for:
BRL - FoxBit in Brazil
VEF - SurBitcoin in Venezuela
CLP - ChileBit in Chile
PKR - UrduBit in Pakistan
For example:
Ticker from FoxBit Brazil
https://api.blinktrade.com/api/v1/BRL/ticker?crypto_currency=BTC
The api also supports JSONP, but it is very likely I will disable that in the near future. It all depends in how people use it.