Cryptocurrency Daily Market Cap Data with Tushare

The world of digital assets moves fast—prices shift, market caps fluctuate, and investor sentiment evolves by the hour. For traders, analysts, and data scientists, having access to reliable, structured cryptocurrency market data is essential for making informed decisions. One of the most effective tools for retrieving this type of financial data is Tushare, a powerful open-source platform that provides comprehensive access to both traditional and digital financial datasets.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to use Tushare’s coincap interface to retrieve daily cryptocurrency market cap data, understand its structure, and leverage it for deeper market insights. Whether you're building trading algorithms, conducting research, or tracking long-term trends, this guide will help you make the most of real-time crypto market data.

What Is the coincap Interface?

The coincap API endpoint in Tushare delivers daily market capitalization data for major cryptocurrencies. This includes key metrics such as price, 24-hour trading volume, circulating supply, and total market cap—all updated every six hours.

Because updates occur multiple times per day, a single date may return several records for the same cryptocurrency. Users can filter these results based on their specific needs—such as selecting the latest snapshot of the day or analyzing intraday volatility patterns.

This high-frequency sampling makes the coincap interface ideal for:

• Backtesting trading strategies
• Monitoring macro-level crypto market health
• Building dashboards for portfolio tracking

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Input Parameters: How to Query the Data

To retrieve data from the coincap interface, you need to specify one required parameter and optionally include a second one for more targeted queries.

Required Parameter

• trade_date (str): The date for which you want to pull data, formatted as YYYYMMDD. For example: '20250405'.

Optional Parameter

• coin (str): Filter results by a specific cryptocurrency using its ticker symbol (e.g., BTC, ETH, XRP). If not provided, the API returns data for all available coins on the given date.

Using these parameters, you can either:

• Fetch market-wide snapshots (by date only)
• Drill down into individual coin performance

Output Fields: Understanding the Dataset

Each record returned by the coincap interface contains detailed information about a cryptocurrency at a specific point in time. Here's what each field means:

• trade_date: Date of data collection (YYYYMMDD format).
• coin: Ticker symbol of the cryptocurrency (e.g., BTC).
• name: Full name of the digital asset (e.g., Bitcoin).
• marketcap: Total market capitalization in USD (as a string due to large values).
• price: Current price in USD (float).
• vol24: 24-hour trading volume in USD.
• supply: Circulating supply of the coin.
• create_time: Timestamp indicating when the data was collected (includes time down to seconds).

These fields provide a robust foundation for quantitative analysis and allow users to calculate derived metrics such as turnover ratio (vol24 / marketcap) or track supply-driven price movements.

How to Use the coincap API

Accessing this data requires setting up a Tushare Pro API key. Once authenticated, you can query the data using Python.

Step 1: Initialize the API

import tushare as ts

# Replace with your actual token after registration
pro = ts.pro_api('your_api_token_here')

Step 2: Retrieve Data

Option A: Get All Coins for a Specific Date

df = pro.coincap(trade_date='20250405')

Option B: Filter by Specific Coin

df = pro.query('coincap', trade_date='20250405', coin='BTC')

Both methods return a pandas DataFrame, making it easy to manipulate, visualize, or export the data.

Example Output (Formatted)

This structured format enables seamless integration into analytical workflows.

Practical Use Cases

1. Market Trend Analysis

Track how top cryptocurrencies grow or contract in market cap over time. You can identify bull and bear cycles by plotting historical marketcap values across dates.

2. Volatility & Liquidity Assessment

Compare vol24 against price and marketcap to assess whether increased trading volume precedes price movements—an indicator often used in momentum trading.

3. Portfolio Benchmarking

If managing a crypto portfolio, use this data to benchmark performance against overall market trends.

4. On-Chain + Market Data Correlation

Combine coincap data with blockchain fundamentals (like active addresses or transaction counts) to uncover hidden correlations between network activity and valuation.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: How often is the coincap data updated?

A: The coincap interface collects data every six hours. Therefore, for any given day, you may see up to four entries per cryptocurrency. It's recommended to filter by create_time to select the most recent or opening snapshot.

Q: Why is marketcap returned as a string?

A: Due to the extremely large numerical values involved (often exceeding typical float precision limits), Tushare returns marketcap as a string formatted in scientific notation. You can convert it to float in Python using float(df['marketcap']).

Q: Can I get historical data for all coins at once?

A: Yes. By omitting the coin parameter and looping through multiple trade_date values, you can build a comprehensive historical dataset spanning months or years.

Q: Is Tushare free to use?

A: Tushare offers a free tier with limited request rates and access. For higher-frequency or commercial usage, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid Pro account and obtain an API token.

Q: What cryptocurrencies are supported?

A: The API supports major coins including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Binance Coin (BNB), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), and many others—typically those ranked in the top 100 by market cap.

Tips for Effective Data Usage

• Filter duplicates: Since data is collected every 6 hours, always sort by create_time and select the latest entry per day if you need daily closing values.
• Handle large numbers carefully: Convert marketcap and vol24 to appropriate numeric types before performing calculations.
• Automate daily pulls: Set up scheduled scripts (using cron jobs or Airflow) to automatically ingest daily snapshots for long-term trend tracking.
• Merge with other datasets: Combine coincap data with fiat exchange rates, on-chain metrics, or sentiment scores for richer analysis.

Final Thoughts

Access to accurate, structured cryptocurrency market data is no longer a luxury—it's a necessity in today’s fast-moving digital economy. With Tushare’s coincap interface, developers and analysts gain a reliable gateway to daily market cap statistics for leading digital assets.

By mastering this tool, you can unlock deeper insights into market dynamics, improve investment decision-making, and build smarter financial models.

Whether you're just starting out or scaling a professional analytics pipeline, integrating high-quality data sources like Tushare sets the foundation for success.

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