Live Crypto Data Is Now Available: Stream BTC, ETH, and More in Real Time

Algo Trade Analytics now supports live cryptocurrency market data. You can stream real-time trades, quotes, and bars for BTC/USD, ETH/USD, SOL/USD, and any other pair available on Alpaca — alongside your existing US equity feeds.

What Changed

Until now, the live view was limited to US equity symbols. With this update, the same real-time infrastructure that powers equity streaming now routes crypto traffic through Alpaca's dedicated crypto WebSocket endpoint, using the correct canonical symbol format the API expects.

The historical bars chart also picks up crypto: when you load a crypto symbol, the platform fetches data from Alpaca's crypto bars API and renders it with the same candlestick view you already use for stocks.

How It Works

Symbol Detection

The platform automatically detects whether a symbol is crypto or an equity. You do not need to configure anything manually. Detection uses a straightforward set of rules:

• If a symbol contains a / separator (e.g. BTC/USD) it is treated as crypto.
• If a symbol ends in a well-known quote currency such as USD, USDT, USDC, BTC, or ETH with a base portion in front (e.g. ETHUSD, SOLUSD), it is also treated as crypto.
• Everything else is treated as a US equity.

If you type a crypto symbol in any of its common forms — BTCUSD, BTC-USD, BTC/USD, or even with an exchange prefix like BITSTAMP:BTCUSD — the platform normalizes it to the canonical Alpaca slash format (BTC/USD) before sending it to the API.

Live Streaming

When you select a crypto symbol and enable live mode, the platform opens a connection to Alpaca's crypto WebSocket:

wss://stream.data.alpaca.markets/v1beta3/crypto/us

This is separate from the equity stream (v2/iex or v2/sip). Each live session connects to exactly one endpoint, so equity and crypto symbols cannot be mixed in the same session. If you select a mix of equity and crypto symbols, the platform will let you know and ask you to pick one asset class before enabling live mode.

Trades, quotes, and minute bars arrive in the same market data format as equities. Your existing charting and comparison tools work without any changes.

Historical Bars

Historical crypto bar data is fetched from:

GET /v1beta3/crypto/us/bars?symbols=BTC/USD&timeframe=...

The response shape is slightly different from the equities endpoint — bars are keyed by symbol inside a bars object rather than returned as a flat array. The platform handles this transparently.

The crypto endpoint supports up to 10,000 bars per page (versus 1,000 for equities), so large date ranges require fewer round trips.

Supported Symbols

Any crypto pair available in your Alpaca account is supported. Common examples:

You type	Platform uses
BTCUSD	BTC/USD
BTC-USD	BTC/USD
BITSTAMP:BTCUSD	BTC/USD
ETHUSD	ETH/USD
SOLUSD	SOL/USD
AVAXUSDT	AVAX/USDT

Mixed Asset Class Warning

Because Alpaca routes equity and crypto data through separate WebSocket endpoints, you cannot stream both in the same live session. If you try to add a crypto symbol to an equity watchlist (or vice versa) and enable live mode, the platform displays a clear message and stays disconnected until you resolve the mismatch. Backtesting and historical comparison features work across both asset classes without any restriction.

What to Try Next

1. Open the live view and type BTC/USD in the symbol selector.
2. Enable live mode — the platform connects to Alpaca's crypto stream automatically.
3. Switch to the chart view to see real-time candlestick data streaming in.
4. Load a historical date range for any crypto symbol to review bars for backtesting purposes.

If you have questions or run into any issues, reach out via the support page.