CashboardGlossary · Infrastructure
What is market data API?
A market data API is a service apps query for prices, volumes, order books and funding rates instead of collecting that data themselves.
How does a market data API work?
Almost every crypto app borrows its numbers. CoinGecko aggregates prices and market caps for thousands of assets. Exchanges like Binance and Hyperliquid publish their own order books, trades and funding. GeckoTerminal and DexScreener index DEX pools, and DefiLlama covers TVL, stablecoin supply and bridges.
Every source has limits. Free tiers are rate limited, so apps cache and batch requests. Coverage differs: a new Solana token can trade on DexScreener well before an aggregator lists it. Methods differ too, so two APIs can quote different prices for the same coin in the same second, and neither is wrong.
APIs time out, and on a bad day they answer with half the data. A decent app shows where each number came from and how old it is, and when one source fails it tries another.
Hypothetical example: CoinGecko stops answering for 40 seconds during a sharp move. One app falls back to Binance and keeps SOL priced, minus market cap and volume. Another quietly prints $0, and the portfolio total drops by whatever that SOL was worth.
Also called: crypto price API, price feed, market data feed.
Where does market data API show up in Cashboard?
Every Cashboard widget names its source and shows how fresh the data is. The Prices widget pulls from CoinGecko every 15 seconds. If CoinGecko does not answer in time, those rows are priced from Binance and lose market cap, volume and range. Trending pools come from GeckoTerminal. If GeckoTerminal fails or rate limits, the widget falls back to DexScreener boosted tokens, which are paid placement, and it says so. When a refresh fails the last good value stays up, and missing data reads as unavailable, never invented.
Frequently asked questions
Why do two crypto price APIs show different prices for the same coin?
They sample different markets. An aggregator blends prices from many exchanges, an exchange reports its own last trade and a DEX indexer reads one pool. A few seconds of timing drift adds to the gap.
Related terms
Last reviewed . Market data in Cashboard comes from the providers named on each widget and may be delayed. Nothing here is financial advice.