Crypto for Broker API #

Alpaca supports crypto trading 24 hours a day, every day. Crypto is available for testing in sandbox, in case you want to allow your users to trade crypto please reach out to the Sales or Developer Success team.

Crypto trading is currently available for eligible international participants and participants in all US jurisdictions with the exception of New York.

Enabling Crypto #

To enable crypto trading for an account, the crypto agreements must be signed by the user. All account balances will represent the crypto trading activities.

In the case of new users, the crypto agreement can be submitted via the Accounts API where crypto_agreement is part of the agreements attribute.

Part of the request

{
  "agreements": [
    {
      "agreement": "crypto_agreement",
      "signed_at": "2021-09-11T18:09:33Z"
    }
  ]
}

In the case of existing users the account has to be updated with the crypto_agreement which can be submitted on the PATCH /v1/accounts/{account_id} endpoint.

Request

{
  "agreements": [
    {
      "agreement": "crypto_agreement",
      "signed_at": "2021-10-11T18:13:44Z",
      "ip_address": "185.13.21.99"
    }
  ]
}

Once the crypto agreement is added to the user account no further edits can be made to the agreements.

To determine whether the account is all set to start trading crypto, use the crypto_status attribute from the Account API endpoint response object.

Response example

{
  "id": "9feee08f-22d2-4804-89c1-bf01166aad52",
  "account_number": "943690069",
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "crypto_status": "ACTIVE"
}

Crypto Status

Supported Assets #

The number of supported cryptocurrencies is above 20 on the Alpaca platform. We constantly evaluate the list and aim to to grow the number of supported currencies.

New Trading Pairs for Brokers coming soon!

We are rolling out crypto trading pairs which will allow your users to trade additional crypto assets with BTC and USDT as base assets on top of the current default USD pairs. The largest impact this new trading feature brings to brokers is a change in crypto pair symbol convention. For example, BTCUSD would now be represented as BTC/USD.

Changes have been made to APIs to be backwards compatible with the old representation of crypto symbols (e.g. BTCUSD). This should minimize disruption for any brokers not actively looking to support new pairs. Should you encounter any problems due to this change please reach out to support.

If your interested in rolling out new crypto trading pairs and want to enable on your environment reach out to support.

For more information on enabling new crypto pairs, see Migration Steps.

Note: By end of Semptember, all brokers will be asked to change to the new symbology convention as this will be the default for crypto trading.

Tradable cryptocurrencies can be identified through the Assets API where the asset entity has class = crypto and tradable = true.

{
  "id": "64bbff51-59d6-4b3c-9351-13ad85e3c752",
  "class": "crypto",
  "exchange": "FTXU",
  "symbol": "BTCUSD",
  "name": "Bitcoin",
  "status": "active",
  "tradable": true,
  "marginable": false,
  "shortable": false,
  "easy_to_borrow": false,
  "fractionable": true
}

Please note that the symbol appears with USD, such as BTCUSD instead of BTC.

All cryptocurrency assets are fractionable but the supported decimal points vary depending on the cryptocurrency.

Note these values could change in the future.

Supported Orders #

When submitting crypto orders through the Orders API, Market, Limit and Stop Limit orders are supported while the supported time_in_force values are gtc, and ioc. We accept fractional orders as well with either notional or qty provided.

Required Disclosures #

Below you will find required disclosure templates to safely support crypto in your applications as a broker with Alpaca.

Onboarding Disclosures #

When onboarding your users as a broker offering crypto the following disclosure is required. During your onboarding flow make sure the user is able to read and affirmatively acknowledge, such as through a separate checkbox, the following text:

I have read, understood, and agree to be bound by Alpaca Crypto LLC and [your legal entity] account terms, and all other terms, disclosures and disclaimers applicable to me, as referenced in the Alpaca Crypto Agreement. I also acknowledge that the Alpaca Crypto Agreement contains a pre-dispute arbitration clause in Section 26.

Buy/Sell Order Screen Disclosures #

As a broker enabling the placement of cryptocurrency orders, the following disclosures should appear on the user’s order entry screen, on the app or website, immediately prior to the user submitting the buy or sell order.

Buy Order Disclosure #

By placing an order to buy [$ amount of / number of ] [cryptocurrency], you are directing and authorizing Alpaca Securities LLC to transfer funds necessary to cover the purchase costs from your Alpaca Securities LLC account into your Alpaca Crypto LLC account. Cryptocurrency services are facilitated by Alpaca Crypto LLC. Cryptocurrencies are not securities and are not FDIC insured or protected by SIPC. Disclosures.

Sell Order Disclosure #

By placing an order to sell [$ amount of / number of ] [cryptocurrency], you are directing and authorizing Alpaca Crypto LLC to transfer settled funds from the sale into your Alpaca Securities LLC account. Cryptocurrency services are facilitated by Alpaca Crypto LLC. Cryptocurrencies are not securities and are not FDIC insured or protected by SIPC. Disclosures.

Margin and Short Selling #

Cryptocurrencies are non-marginable. This means that you cannot use leverage to buy them and orders are evaluated against non_marginable_buying_power.

Cryptocurrencies are not shortable.

Trading Hours #

Crypto trading is offered for 24 hours everyday and your orders will be executed throughout the day.

Market Data #

Alpaca provides crypto data from multiple venues.

Crypto exchanges supported by Alpaca:

Migrating to New Crypto Pairs #

We are in the process of enabling new assets for brokers in the form of crypto pairs. This will enable brokers to execute trades to the traditional USD pairs and the new non-USD pairs (e.g. BTC and USDT).

Migration Details #

Deadline to migrate to new crypto pairs is November 14th! After this date we will switch all brokers to leverage new crypto pairs symbology. We highly recommend you switch prior to this date to avoid any unforeseen problems. We will enable crypto pairs on sandbox by default during migration period in preparation to move to the new pairs and symbology by default.

Here are some steps to take care of during migration:

1. New symbology: Once crypto pairs are enabled Assets API (/v1/assets) will start returning crypto assets with new symbology. For example, BTCUSD would now be returned as BTC/USD where we now separate the base and quote currencies.
2. Start consuming crypto market data from v1beta2 endpoints: Traditionally, brokers have been consuming crypto data from v1beta1, you will need to change to new market data endpoints to be able to consume data for pairs with new symbology. This includes both historical and real-time data.
3. When submitting orders, you can continue using old symbology as we have made this backwards compatible. However, we encourage changing order submission to use new symbology.
4. For positions, these will remain with the same symbology. This does not change as most crypto assets are quoted in USD.
5. For new crypto pairs, fees would be collected in quoted crypto assets. For example, a buy or sell of ETH/BTC would incur in a BTC fee collected as this is the quote currency/asset. For current pairs, such as BTC/USD, the collected fee would be in USD which is how this has typically worked.

Reconciliation with new symbology

Some brokers might leverage activities with current positions to do some form of reconciliation. Take note that positions will continue to use old symbology, such as BTCUSD, while activities will use new crypto pairs convention BTC/USD.

If your system previously matched positions with activities or other sources of information such as orders, these might cause problems and we encourage you to do a broad sweep of these to make sure all is handled correctly with this new migration.

Crypto Fee Revenue Notice If you enable non-USD crypto trading you will receive fees in the quote currency. Currently, non-USD quote crypto assets are BTC and USDT. As a broker business you would need to be ready to handle collecting crypto fees plus taking care of the necessary conversions if needed.

Crypto Pairs API Changes #

With the introduction of crypto pairs some APIs have changed how certain fields return data, particularly the symbol key which will now include a forward slash (/) such as BTC/USD.

Below we go over some API examples of how things changed or reamined the same and explain why.

Note: These API changes will only be applicable if the broker has crypto coin pairs enabled. At the moment this is not turned on by default for all brokers.

Assets API #

Generally, the largest change with pairs have been the introduction of the the forward slash in the symbol field of the asset.

Additionally, the crypto asset name field has also changed the naming convention given it’s now a pair of two assets.

{
  "id": "89691a28-7d5e-46bc-ab11-d5f3bf9ffffc",
  "class": "crypto",
  "exchange": "FTXU",
  "symbol": "BTCUSD",
  "name": "Bitcoin",
  "status": "active",
  "tradable": true,
  "marginable": true,
  "maintenance_margin_requirement": 30,
  "shortable": false,
  "easy_to_borrow": false,
  "fractionable": true,
  "min_order_size": "0.0001",
  "min_trade_increment": "0.0001",
  "price_increment": "1"
}

{
  "id": "276e2673-764b-4ab6-a611-caf665ca6340",
  "class": "crypto",
  "exchange": "FTXU",
  "symbol": "BTC/USD",
  "name": "BTC/USD pair",
  "status": "active",
  "tradable": true,
  "marginable": true,
  "maintenance_margin_requirement": 30,
  "shortable": false,
  "easy_to_borrow": false,
  "fractionable": true,
  "min_order_size": "0.0001",
  "min_trade_increment": "0.0001",
  "price_increment": "1"
}

Orders API #

For Orders API, you can now submit crypto orders to a crypto pair. You can still submit order to the typical USD pair, and the new BTC and USDT pairs.

You can also continue submitting order with older symbology (e.g. BTCUSD) as we have made this backwards compatible. However, we encourage you to update API submission to use new symbology.

Below are some examples of submitting a BTC order using the old and new symbol convention.

{
  "symbol": "BTCUSD",
  "qty": "0.0001",
  "side": "buy",
  "type": "market",
  "time_in_force": "gtc"
}

{
  "symbol": "BTC/USD",
  "qty": "0.0001",
  "side": "buy",
  "type": "market",
  "time_in_force": "gtc"
}

Note that the response object for orders will return the new pairs symbol convention. Regardless if you submit an order using old symbology, the Order API response will return new symbology in the response payload.

{
  "id": "86d8ea2f-6e28-4e0f-8177-b640e358b8ce",
  "client_order_id": "f68c083e-2e44-4880-a5d9-e5529595b1ae",
  "created_at": "2022-08-25T23:23:25.57133376Z",
  "updated_at": "2022-08-25T23:23:25.57138752Z",
  "submitted_at": "2022-08-25T23:23:25.5700714Z",
  "filled_at": null,
  "expired_at": null,
  "canceled_at": null,
  "failed_at": null,
  "replaced_at": null,
  "replaced_by": null,
  "replaces": null,
  "asset_id": "276e2673-764b-4ab6-a611-caf665ca6340",
  "symbol": "BTC/USD",
  "asset_class": "crypto",
  "notional": null,
  "qty": "0.0001",
  "filled_qty": "0",
  "filled_avg_price": null,
  "order_class": "",
  "order_type": "market",
  "type": "market",
  "side": "buy",
  "time_in_force": "gtc",
  "limit_price": null,
  "stop_price": null,
  "status": "pending_new",
  "extended_hours": false,
  "legs": null,
  "trail_percent": null,
  "trail_price": null,
  "hwm": null,
  "commission": "0",
  "subtag": null,
  "source": null
}

Positions API #

Positions were not impacted by the introduction of crypto pairs. Lets say you acquired a BTC position by submitting an order symbol BTCUSD or with new pair convention BTC/USD, the position will still be shown as BTCUSD.

The reasoning behind this is that the position is a sole asset quoted typically in USD, whereas pairs are a combination of two assets (with a base and quote currency involve).

{
  "asset_id": "89691a28-7d5e-46bc-ab11-d5f3bf9ffffc",
  "symbol": "BTCUSD",
  "exchange": "FTXU",
  "asset_class": "crypto",
  "asset_marginable": true,
  "qty": "1.0002997",
  "avg_entry_price": "22577.2578201313066474",
  "side": "long",
  "market_value": "21610.4747188",
  "cost_basis": "22584.0242243",
  "unrealized_pl": "-973.5495055",
  "unrealized_plpc": "-0.043107884397878",
  "unrealized_intraday_pl": "45.0054945",
  "unrealized_intraday_plpc": "0.0020869239631145",
  "current_price": "21604",
  "lastday_price": "21559",
  "change_today": "0.0020872953290969",
  "qty_available": "1.0002997"
}

Activities API #

When using the Activities API, you can expect the receive fills with the new symbol convention introduced for pairs.

{
  "id": "20220721101546378::8abc16a3-dc77-407e-9b2f-72eea5884d05",
  "account_id": "18dac886-46e1-4d5f-99e6-b2d144352626",
  "activity_type": "FILL",
  "transaction_time": "2022-07-21T14:15:46.378759Z",
  "type": "fill",
  "price": "22577.555",
  "qty": "1",
  "side": "buy",
  "symbol": "BTCUSD",
  "leaves_qty": "0",
  "order_id": "8e948ae4-fa4d-4e00-a2f7-df16e3a3bf13",
  "cum_qty": "1",
  "order_status": "filled"
}

{
  "id": "20220825192347582::0fc5288b-c661-4f26-ad18-49aef5fd5c76",
  "account_id": "18dac886-46e1-4d5f-99e6-b2d144352626",
  "activity_type": "FILL",
  "transaction_time": "2022-08-25T23:23:47.582801Z",
  "type": "fill",
  "price": "21596.575",
  "qty": "0.0001",
  "side": "buy",
  "symbol": "BTC/USD",
  "leaves_qty": "0",
  "order_id": "ecf2468e-0d12-4b81-9267-918e91d728b7",
  "cum_qty": "0.0001",
  "order_status": "filled"
}

FAQ #

Is crypto available across 50 states? Crypto is currently available in 49 states with the exception of New York.

Is crypto available in all countries? Alpaca is supported in all countries listed here.

Can I use crypto only in my app? Yes. If you want to enable crypto trading only for your users, you can do so by showing only the crypto assets within the product.

Does the portfolio history support crypto 24/7? The portfolio history does not yet support a 24/7 cycle.

Are the same documents available for crypto as for equities? Monthly statements and trade confirmations are not generated for crypto trading. Tax documents (1099-MISC) will be provided for the crypto trades by Alpaca.

Can I add my own markup to the spread? Yes, Alpaca can set your preferred percentage to add the markup/premium to the crypto spread.

Can I transfer cryptocurrency into/out of Alpaca? Users can buy and sell cryptocurrency on Alpaca. However, we do not support transferring crypto into or out of accounts at this time.