Who Coinbase is
Coinbase is a crypto company founded in 2012 and listed on Nasdaq. It runs Coinbase Exchange, its own order book venue, next to products for consumers, businesses and institutions.
Coinbase Prime is its full-service prime brokerage for institutions: trading, custody, financing and staking in one account, with a smart order router that shows several venues as one order book per pair. That is why our FX module and matching engine connect to Prime, and our market data module to Coinbase Exchange.
What it does in your platform
FX
Covers the crypto side of conversions through Coinbase Prime: the module reads Prime's aggregated order books next to your other sources, and covers each conversion through Prime once it has booked in your ledger.
Matching engine
Backs quieter pairs with liquidity reached through Prime. Its aggregated depth can stand behind a pair's order book, so customers find depth to trade against from the first day while your own market makers build theirs.
Market data
Brings live quotes and order book data from Coinbase Exchange. Its public WebSocket stream needs no login, and the module checks it against your other sources before publishing one consistent quote per asset to your apps and charts.
How the connection works
Two connections, one per Coinbase product: Prime's REST, FIX and WebSocket APIs for trading, with keys kept in your platform's secrets, and Coinbase Exchange's public WebSocket for market data.
Data comes in
Coinbase Exchange streams tickers and order book updates to the market data module, and Prime's l2_data channel sends the FX module a snapshot of its aggregated book, then every update.
A customer converts
Your app shows the rate with your margin, and on confirm the conversion books in your ledger at once.
The order goes to Prime
The module covers it with a Prime order, which the smart order router sends across connected venues, or with an RFQ to market makers.
Fills come back
FIX execution reports, or the WebSocket orders channel, report each fill, and the module books it to your ledger next to the conversion.
Balances line up
Trades draw on your Prime trading balance, or on buying power where financing is enabled. Your treasury team sees every trade in the admin backoffice.
Next to other providers
Coinbase Prime is one of the crypto liquidity providers in the FX module and one of the external liquidity sources in the matching engine, next to peers such as Kraken, B2C2 and Wintermute. The FX module compares their quotes, executes with the best, and keeps quoting if one of them stalls.
In the market data module, Coinbase sits with Kaiko, CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and Binance. If its stream goes quiet, quotes fail over to the next source, and an asset with no fresh quote is flagged instead of showing a stale number. Switching any of these later does not change your apps.
When Coinbase fits best
A strong fit when
- You want one institutional account for trading, custody and financing, reaching several venues through it.
- Your team wants REST, FIX and WebSocket APIs that all work against the same Prime portfolios.
- You want Coinbase Exchange's order book among the sources behind the quotes in your apps.
Also worth a look
- Kraken, Binance or OKX, other venues from the same groups, next to Coinbase or instead of it.
- An aggregator such as Kaiko or CoinGecko, when you want market data gathered across many venues.
How we get you live
The contract
We help you get your Coinbase Prime account and contract in place, with the entities and portfolios your platform needs.
The portfolios
We set up with you the Prime portfolios trades draw on, the pairs each module uses, and your margins on conversions.
The keys
Prime's API keys and passphrase go into your platform's secrets and nowhere else. The public market data stream needs no key.
A full test run
Market data is tested against Coinbase Exchange's sandbox, and Prime trading is proven with small trades in a dedicated portfolio, before customers see either.
