What is the easiest way to programmatically obtain the current USD-BTC spot price?

Question

E.g., if I wanted to create a cron script that would grab the latest spot price every hour and store it in a local file or database, what would be the place to "scrape" that information from?

(Actually writing the script is not the problem, in my case.)

FYI, I ended up using the [API of BitcoinCharts.com](http://bitcoincharts.com/about/markets-api/) to do this. The Mt Gox API may have worked just as well in my case, but for whatever reason, I was having an issue with my (Python) script that attempted to poll mtgox.com -- it would hang upon making the HTTPS request. — Chris W., Oct 31 '11 at 14:18

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 25 '11 at 14:40

10

You could use the JSON encoded ticker data available from MtGox at: https://mtgox.com/api/0/data/ticker.php

Just use whatever your language's equivalent to cURL or wGet is and parse as appropriate.

answered Oct 25 '11 at 14:40

David Perry

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Unsurprisingly (to anyone familiar with the now-infamous Mt Gox saga), this method will no longer work. – Chris W. Dec 23 '17 at 01:15

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 30 '11 at 09:13

5

You could try using www.btcrate.com as well, which supports additional currencies (should you need them).

edited Oct 30 '11 at 09:13

D.H.

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answered Oct 30 '11 at 07:40

user632

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 23 '17 at 01:15

0

There are probably dozens of sites that now provide this data, but the CoinDesk API is one option.

answered Dec 23 '17 at 01:15

Chris W.

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What is the easiest way to programmatically obtain the current USD-BTC spot price?

3 Answers3