Tracking Crypto Prices

Overview

Foundation skill providing real-time and historical cryptocurrency price data. This skill is the data layer for the crypto plugin ecosystem - 10+ other skills depend on it for price information.

Key Capabilities:

• Real-time prices for 10,000+ cryptocurrencies

• Historical OHLCV data (1 day to all-time)

• Multi-currency support (USD, EUR, GBP, 30+ currencies)

• Intelligent caching to minimize API calls

• Predefined and custom watchlists

• Export to CSV/JSON for analysis

Dependent Skills: This skill provides price data to: market-movers-scanner, crypto-portfolio-tracker, crypto-tax-calculator, defi-yield-optimizer, liquidity-pool-analyzer, staking-rewards-optimizer, crypto-derivatives-tracker, dex-aggregator-router, options-flow-analyzer, arbitrage-opportunity-finder.

Prerequisites

Install required dependencies:

pip install requests pandas yfinance

Optional for advanced features:

pip install python-dotenv # For API key management

API Setup (optional, for higher rate limits):

• Get free API key from https://www.coingecko.com/en/api

• Add to {baseDir}/config/settings.yaml or set environment variable COINGECKO_API_KEY

Instructions

Step 1: Quick Price Check

Get current price for any cryptocurrency:

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbol BTC

Check multiple assets:

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbols BTC,ETH,SOL

Step 2: Use Watchlists

Scan predefined watchlists:

Top 10 by market cap

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --watchlist top10

DeFi tokens

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --watchlist defi

Layer 2 tokens

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --watchlist layer2

Available watchlists: top10 , defi , layer2 , stablecoins , memecoins

Step 3: Fetch Historical Data

Get OHLCV (Open, High, Low, Close, Volume) history:

Last 30 days

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbol BTC --period 30d

Last 90 days with CSV export

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbol BTC --period 90d --output csv

Custom date range

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbol ETH --start 2024-01-01 --end 2024-12-31

Step 4: Configure Settings

Edit {baseDir}/config/settings.yaml to customize:

cache: spot_ttl: 30 # Seconds to cache spot prices historical_ttl: 3600 # Seconds to cache historical data

currency: default: usd # Default fiat currency

watchlists: custom: # Add your own watchlist - BTC - ETH - SOL

Output

Price Table (Default)

================================================================================ CRYPTO PRICES Updated: [timestamp]

Symbol Price (USD) 24h Change Volume (24h) Market Cap

BTC $97,234.56 +2.34% $28.5B $1.92T ETH $3,456.78 +1.87% $12.3B $415.2B SOL $142.34 +5.12% $2.1B $61.4B

Total 24h Change: +2.44% (weighted)

================================================================================

JSON Output (--format json)

{ "prices": [ { "symbol": "BTC", "name": "Bitcoin", "price": 97234.56, "currency": "USD", "change_24h": 2.34, "volume_24h": 28500000000, "market_cap": 1920000000000, "timestamp": "[timestamp]", "source": "coingecko" } ], "meta": { "count": 1, "currency": "USD", "cached": false } }

Historical CSV Export

date,open,high,low,close,volume [date],95000.00,96500.00,94200.00,96100.00,25000000000 [date],96100.00,97800.00,95800.00,97500.00,27000000000

Configuration

Edit {baseDir}/config/settings.yaml :

API Configuration

api: coingecko: api_key: ${COINGECKO_API_KEY} # Optional, from env use_pro: false yfinance: enabled: true # Fallback source

Cache Configuration

cache: enabled: true spot_ttl: 30 # Spot price TTL (seconds) historical_ttl: 3600 # Historical data TTL (seconds) directory: ./data

Display Configuration

currency: default: usd supported: - usd - eur - gbp - jpy - cad - aud

Predefined Watchlists

watchlists: top10: - bitcoin - ethereum - tether - binancecoin - solana - ripple - cardano - avalanche-2 - dogecoin - polkadot

defi: - uniswap - aave - chainlink - maker - compound-governance-token - curve-dao-token - sushi

layer2: - matic-network - arbitrum - optimism - immutable-x

Error Handling

See {baseDir}/references/errors.md for comprehensive error handling.

Common Errors

Error Cause Solution

Unknown symbol: XYZ

Invalid cryptocurrency ticker Check spelling, use --list to search

Rate limit exceeded

Too many API calls Wait 60s, or use API key for higher limits

Network error

No internet connection Check connection, cached data will be used

Cache stale

Cached data older than TTL Data still shown with warning, will refresh

Rate Limit Handling

The skill automatically:

• Uses cached data when available

• Applies exponential backoff on rate limits

• Falls back to yfinance if CoinGecko fails

• Shows stale cache data with warning as last resort

Examples

See {baseDir}/references/examples.md for detailed examples including:

• Multi-timeframe analysis

• Portfolio value calculation

• Price alert setup

• Integration with other skills

Example 1: Quick Price Check

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbol BTC

Output:

BTC (Bitcoin) $97,234.56 USD +2.34% (24h) | Vol: $28.5B | MCap: $1.92T

Example 2: Watchlist Scan

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --watchlist top10

Example 3: Historical Export

python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbol ETH --period 90d --output csv

Creates: {baseDir}/data/ETH_90d_[date].csv

Integration with Other Skills

This skill provides the price data foundation for other crypto skills.

Direct Import (recommended for Python skills):

from price_tracker import get_current_prices, get_historical_prices

Get prices for portfolio valuation

prices = get_current_prices(["BTC", "ETH", "SOL"])

CLI Subprocess (for non-Python or isolation):

PRICES=$(python {baseDir}/scripts/price_tracker.py --symbols BTC,ETH --format json)

Shared Cache (efficient for batch): Multiple skills can read from {baseDir}/data/cache.json to avoid redundant API calls.

Files

File Purpose

scripts/price_tracker.py

Main CLI entry point

scripts/api_client.py

CoinGecko/yfinance abstraction

scripts/cache_manager.py

Cache read/write/invalidation

scripts/formatters.py

Output formatting

config/settings.yaml

User configuration

data/cache.json

Price cache (auto-generated)

Resources

• CoinGecko API - Primary data source

• yfinance - Fallback for historical data

• PRD.md - Product requirements

• ARD.md - Architecture documentation