KuCoin API

Base URL

https://api.kucoin.com/api/v1

Authentication

No key for market data. Trading and account endpoints require an API key, secret and passphrase with HMAC request signing.

Rate limit

Weighted per-endpoint limits by IP for public calls, typically well above what a display application needs.

Pricing

Free for public market data.

CORS

Not enabled — call it from your server

Official docs

Read the docs

Every request below was executed against the live API on 21 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.

curl 'https://api.kucoin.com/api/v1/market/orderbook/level1?symbol=BTC-USDT'

const res = await fetch("https://api.kucoin.com/api/v1/market/orderbook/level1?symbol=BTC-USDT");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

res = requests.get("https://api.kucoin.com/api/v1/market/orderbook/level1?symbol=BTC-USDT", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())

{
  "code": "200000",
  "data": {
    "time": 1787289058638,
    "sequence": "35816831424",
    "price": "75237.6",
    "size": "0.00032951",
    "bestBid": "75237.5",
    "bestBidSize": "0.43595321",
    "bestAsk": "75237.6",
    "bestAskSize": "0.00357895"
  }
}

codestring

Envelope status. The string 200000 means success — check this as well as the HTTP status, since failures can arrive with HTTP 200.

data.pricestring

Last traded price, as a string to preserve precision.

data.sizestring

Size of the most recent trade.

data.bestBid / bestAskstring

Best bid and best ask price currently on the book.

data.bestBidSize / bestAskSizestring

Quantity available at the best bid and best ask — the depth at the top of the book.

data.timeinteger

Timestamp in milliseconds, not seconds. Dividing by 1000 is a common mistake to avoid making twice.

data.sequencestring

Monotonic order book sequence number, used to detect missed updates when combining REST with the WebSocket feed.

• Quote a price for an altcoin not listed on major exchanges
• Measure the bid-ask spread and top-of-book depth before placing an order
• Bootstrap an order book snapshot before subscribing to the WebSocket stream
• Track altcoin prices in a portfolio tracker

If KuCoin does not fit, these finance & crypto apis cover similar ground. Every one was called before publishing, and each links to its own reference page with a working curl command and the response it returned.