How Messari Built the Leading Cryptocurrency Information Aggregator Powered by Kaiko’s Market Data API
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(4 minute read) This case study will explore how Messari, the leading cryptocurrency information aggregator, leverages Kaiko's historical and live market data API to provide a comprehensive charting and analytics toolkit for traders, analysts, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Overview
In just a few short years, Messari has become one of the biggest names in crypto as an aggregator of information, data, and research. With hundreds of thousands of visitors a month, their website provides one of the most extensive data platforms for charting and advanced metrics for crypto assets, offering both a free tier and paid subscriptions.
Messari’s mission is to provide the tools necessary to better understand information in the cryptocurrency industry. By outsourcing data management to Kaiko, they have been able to build out their product exponentially while ensuring that the backbone of their website—historical and live cryptocurrency market data—is of the highest quality and reliability.
The Problem: A Reliable Data Backbone
Messari has earned the cryptocurrency industry’s trust as an information aggregator for all projects and assets. To get there, they had to ensure that their users had access to as much data as possible while ensuring that this data was high integrity.
Accessing huge amounts of data is no simple task, especially for companies whose core business is not enterprise data management. To build charting and analytics tools for hundreds of crypto-assets, you need to connect to thousands of data feeds, which are distributed across dozens of exchanges. No two cryptocurrency exchanges are alike, which makes normalizing, cleaning, and aggregating data feeds an extremely time-consuming process.
Messari needed a reliable data solution to serve as the backbone to their derived analytics, charting, and screener tools, which would allow them to develop new features without having to worry about the basics.
Messari CEO Ryan Selkis said, “We needed someone with comprehensive global exchange coverage, deep historical data, and a reliable API. As a visible brand in the crypto space, we can't afford breakages in our real time API or incomplete order book data. Kaiko has delivered for us.”
The Solution: Comprehensive Data Feeds from a Single API
Rather than build out a complex data management system, Messari decided to outsource all aspects of collection, normalization, aggregation and storage to Kaiko. By integrating with Kaiko's REST API, Messari is able to leverage nearly every type of market data for use in a vast array of derived metrics, including trade data, OHLCV candlesticks, order book data, and exchange rates. This data covers more than 900 assets aggregated across dozens of exchanges, with more than 8 years of history and real-time updates.
By selecting a single source of market data, Messari guarantees that all data has the same structure and that asset taxonomies match across exchanges, creating a seamless integration experience.
12+ REST API Endpoints for Charting and Analytics
{Trade Data}: Live and historical tick-by-tick trade data, including every executed transaction on an exchange.
{OHLCV Candlesticks}: Live and historical [Open, High, Low, Close, Volume], in granularities ranging from 1 second to 1 day.
{Order Book Snapshots}: Limit order book snapshots, updated twice per minute, with every bid and ask placed within 10% of the midprice
{Exchange Rates}: A composite price for a crypto asset aggregated across exchanges. Fiat conversions available.
The Results: Advanced Charting and Analytics
Access to 8+ years of historical data, real-time data feeds, and a suite of aggregated and tick-level market data—all from a single API—has enabled Messari to build one of the most advanced charting and analytics platforms in the industry.
Chart: Messari’s charting tool provides access to 900+ crypto-asset OHLC charts, with optional granularities ranging from 5 minutes to two weeks (and tick-level for paying subscribers). On top of the charting tool, users have the option to add dozens of derived indicators, including Bollinger Bands, volume, volatility, moving averages, and more.
Messari's charting tool.
Screener: Screener allows users to compare customizable cross sets of crypto-assets, such as DeFi tokens or Stablecoins. Their “customize” filter enables users to select from more than 100+ quantitative metrics, many of which are calculated from trades, order books, and exchange rates data.
Messari's screener tool.
Impact: Unlimited and Custimizable Features for Messari's Users
Messari’s charting and screener tool enables any level of user to build the interface they need to understand cryptocurrency markets. By providing both a free tier and an advanced paid tier, they have successfully built a product for either professionals or enthusiasts.
Messari CEO Ryan Selkis said, “As a crypto data aggregator, we never thought of high fidelity market data as a core competency, but it was critical to partner with a best-in-class vendor. Kaiko was in a league of its own with respect to historical data, granularity, and reliability. They've also got one of the best and most collaborative teams that we've worked with.”
By outsourcing data management to Kaiko, Messari ensures that they have the developer resources to build any set of features, data visualizations, and derived metrics, leveraging high-quality and reliable data.
Learn more about Kaiko's historical data services here and live data services here.
About Kaiko
Founded in 2014, Kaiko is a market data provider in the blockchain-based digital assets space, providing institutional investors and market participants with enterprise-grade data infrastructure. We collect, normalize, store, and distribute digital assets market data via a livestream WebSocket, REST API, and cloud-based flat file (.csv) Data Feed, to which clients connect to build data-driven applications.
About Messari
Messari brings transparency to the cryptoeconomy. Their mission is to help investors, regulators, and the public make sense of this revolutionary new asset class, and are building data tools that will drive informed decision making and investment. We believe that crypto will democratize access to information, break down data silos, and ultimately give everyone the tools to build wealth.