Best of · Payments & protocols
Best crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers for AI agents
The 10 highest-scoring of 21 crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers on the Anchor benchmark, with a pick for each need and where each one falls short. Scores come from public evidence, re-checked as vendors change.
- 21 ranked
- 2 agent-ready
- 3 hosted endpoints
- Updated 3 November 2026
Top three
Picks by need
Worked out from the scores, prices and facts, so they change when the research does.
Schema & documentation
90/100 on schema & documentation, against 88 for the overall leader.
The review panel's favourite
Coinbase MCP server (Coinbase for Agents) C
2.5/5 from 4 panel reviews.
The shortlist
| # | Tool | Grade | Best for | Price | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gemini Exchange API Gemini Trust Company, LLC |
BB 74.6 | An agent trading spot, perpetuals or prediction markets for a US customer with a role-limited key and a sandbox to rehearse on. | 0.6% fee | Local |
| 2 | Kraken API Payward, Inc. |
BB 71 | An agent that trades spot, xStocks, forex or futures on a person's Kraken account from a local machine, with paper trading to test first and an approval gate on live orders. | 0.4% fee | Local |
| 3 | dYdX dYdX Trading Inc. |
B 69.5 | An agent trading perpetuals from its own Cosmos wallet or through a permissioned key on an owner's account, outside the US, Canada and UK. | 0.05% fee | Local |
| 4 | OKX API OKX |
B 64.3 | An agent trading spot, perpetuals, futures or options on a person's OKX account from a local machine, with demo trading to test first and grid or DCA bots through the kit. | Pay per use | Local |
| 5 | Uniswap Trading API Uniswap Labs |
B 63.3 | An agent swapping or bridging tokens from its own wallet on 21 EVM chains, or managing liquidity positions, with routing done for it. | Free | Local |
| 6 | Binance API Binance |
B 63.2 | An agent trading a funded Binance account outside the prohibited countries, with the deepest set of markets in this group and a free testnet. | 0.1% fee | Hosted |
| 7 | Coinbase Advanced Trade API Coinbase, Inc. |
C 61.7 | An agent trading a person's or a treasury's Coinbase account with its own key, where the person wants sandbox tests and portfolio scoping. | Pay per use | Local |
| 8 | Coinbase MCP server (Coinbase for Agents) Coinbase, Inc. |
C 60 | An agent acting in a person's own Coinbase account, trading spot crypto, US futures and eligible US stocks and paying for market research by x402. | Free | Hosted and local |
| 9 | Deribit Deribit FZE |
C 59 | An agent trading crypto options, dated futures and perpetuals for an institutional or retail Deribit account, and anyone migrated from Coinbase International Exchange. | 0.02% fee | Local |
| 10 | Bitfinex API iFinex Inc. |
C 58.4 | An agent trading spot, margin or derivatives, or lending on the funding market, with scoped keys, official clients and paper trading. | 0% fee | Local |
11 more are ranked in the full table.
How to choose
- Official MCP server or API onlyCheck whether the exchange runs its own MCP server or only publishes an API, since a third-party server holds the key and sees every order.
- Key scopes and withdrawalsCheck whether a key can be limited to reading or trading with withdrawals off and to a list of addresses, because a key an agent holds will one day leak.
- Countries servedCheck which countries the exchange serves and which products it serves them, as an agent acting for a person in the wrong country gets its account frozen.
- Testnet or sandboxCheck for a testnet or sandbox with the same API, so an agent's order logic can be run with no money at risk.
How the benchmark tests this category. In this run, public evidence against the published checklist. When the task suites run, the same read-only key on each exchange's testnet or sandbox, a price and an order book read, a small limit order placed and cancelled, and the balance read back. We check key scopes, rate limits, the order lifecycle and what the terms let an agent do.
Each one in detail
Gemini Exchange API
BB 74.6/100Gemini's exchange API for spot, margin, perpetuals, prediction markets and staking, through REST, WebSocket and FIX, with API key roles or OAuth, plus an official MCP server and SDKs from its developer-platform repository.
Verdict Gemini publishes an OpenAPI and AsyncAPI contract, API key roles that keep withdrawals off a trading key, a funded sandbox, and an official MCP server whose tools carry read-only and destructive annotations and a confirm gate. Client order ids are not checked for duplicates, there is no SLA, and UK, EEA and Australian accounts closed in April 2026.
Best for An agent trading spot, perpetuals or prediction markets for a US customer with a role-limited key and a sandbox to rehearse on.
Strengths
- Key roles enforce least privilege, since Trader cannot withdraw, Fund Manager cannot trade, Auditor is read-only, and a 403
MissingRolenames the role an endpoint needs - Official MCP server with readOnlyHint and destructiveHint on every tool, a
confirm: truegate on funds-moving tools, untrusted-output framing and redaction of free-text fields - OpenAPI 3 and AsyncAPI files, llms.txt, llms-full.txt, agents.md, an agent card and an error-codes page with 53 named reasons
Weaknesses
- Client order ids are only recommended to be unique and no duplicate rejection is documented, so a retried order can execute twice
- No Retry-After, backoff guidance or SLA; 429 continues until the rate drops, and the upcoming-changes page reads "TBD"
- The MCP server lists 87 tools with no toolset or read-only subset switch, which costs context on every session
Price 0.6% feeAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoLocal
Kraken API
BB 71/100Kraken's exchange APIs cover spot, tokenised US stocks, forex and futures over REST, WebSocket and FIX, with rate limits by client tier, a self-service futures demo and kraken-cli, an open-source CLI whose kraken-mcp binary is a local MCP server.
Verdict Kraken pairs a documented REST, WebSocket and FIX API with the open-source kraken-cli, whose kraken-mcp server gates 33 dangerous tools behind approval and signs in by OAuth with a no-withdrawal key. Spot has no self-service sandbox, no OpenAPI file was found, and a 59-minute connectivity outage hit every interface on 30 October 2026.
Best for An agent that trades spot, xStocks, forex or futures on a person's Kraken account from a local machine, with paper trading to test first and an approval gate on live orders.
Strengths
- Official local MCP server with 152 typed tools in services, destructive_hint on dangerous tools and an elicitation approval before each unless disabled
- OAuth sign-in from the CLI mints a restricted spot key with no withdrawal rights that expires within 90 days, or a read-only key
- Rate limits published with numbers by client tier for REST and the matching engine, shared across REST, WebSocket and FIX
Weaknesses
- No self-service spot sandbox; the spot UAT environment is on request through an account manager, and paper trading lives in the CLI
- No OpenAPI file was found for the REST API; the machine-readable contract is the CLI's tool catalogue
- Spot and derivatives clients could not connect or submit orders on any interface for 59 minutes on 30 October 2026
Price 0.4% feeAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoLocal
dYdX
B 69.5/100dYdX is a perpetuals exchange on its own Cosmos chain. Agents read markets and accounts from the indexer REST and WebSocket API at indexer.dydx.trade and place orders as signed chain transactions through the official TypeScript, Python and Rust clients.
Verdict dYdX gives an agent keyless indexer reads, permissioned keys limited by message type, subaccount and market, a Statuspage with a clean 90 days, published fees and a testnet with a faucet. There is no official MCP server or OpenAPI file, orders are chain transactions signed by the clients, and no one entity operates the hosted endpoints.
Best for An agent trading perpetuals from its own Cosmos wallet or through a permissioned key on an owner's account, outside the US, Canada and UK.
Strengths
- Permissioned keys limit a delegated key to chosen message types, subaccounts and markets, exclude withdrawals and transfers, and are removed with
remove_authenticator - status.dydx.trade lists Indexer, Chain, Order Gateway and Client Libraries components, with only maintenance windows and one partner deposit delay in the last 90 days
- Fees public at 5.0 bps taker and 1.0 bps maker at the lowest tier, with rate limits and block limits stated with numbers
Weaknesses
- No official MCP server; the one registry entry is a third party's analytics server
- No OpenAPI file for the indexer; error responses are described by HTTP status only, and chain rejections surface as transaction results
- No 429 handling or Retry-After documented for the indexer; permissioned keys cannot cap position or order size
Price 0.05% feeAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoLocal
OKX API
B 64.3/100OKX's V5 API covers spot, margin, perpetual, futures and options trading, account and market data over REST and WebSocket, with demo trading on the same host and an open-source Agent Trade Kit whose okx-trade-mcp package is a local MCP server.
Verdict OKX publishes per-endpoint rate limits, Read, Trade and Withdraw key permissions with IP binding, demo trading on the production host, and an MIT MCP server with 170 tools, a read-only flag and a permission check at startup. The fee table and privacy policy were not read, no OpenAPI file was found, and the news tools return third-party text.
Best for An agent trading spot, perpetuals, futures or options on a person's OKX account from a local machine, with demo trading to test first and grid or DCA bots through the kit.
Strengths
- Official local MCP server, MIT, with modules, --read-only, a demo profile, readOnlyHint annotations and a startup check that hides order tools when the key cannot trade
- Keys limited to Read, Trade or Withdraw, bound to up to 20 IPs, with unbound Trade and Withdraw keys expiring after 14 idle days
- Rate limits published per endpoint and per User ID, with sub-account and WebSocket limits in numbers
Weaknesses
- The fee table loads by script and the fee FAQ defers to the logged-in view, so maker and taker rates were not read
- No OpenAPI file was found in the docs; the machine-readable contract is the kit's tool definitions
- The status page lists incidents without component history, and its newest entry is from March 2024
Price Pay per useAuth API keyx402 NoLocal
Uniswap Trading API
B 63.3/100Uniswap Labs' Trading API quotes and builds swap, bridge and liquidity transactions across Uniswap v2, v3, v4 and UniswapX on 21 chains. The caller signs with its own wallet and broadcasts; the API is free behind an API key.
Verdict The Trading API is free, documented by an OpenAPI file with stable error codes, holds no keys since the caller signs every swap, and posts sunset notices 30 days ahead. There is no official MCP server, status page or sandbox, the key is a plain header secret at 6 requests a second, and the API terms refused our reader.
Best for An agent swapping or bridging tokens from its own wallet on 21 EVM chains, or managing liquidity positions, with routing done for it.
Strengths
- OpenAPI 3.0 file, llms.txt, llms-full.txt and Markdown twins, with 400, 401, 404 and 429 schemas and a stable
errorCodeenum - The API builds calldata and never holds funds or keys; the caller signs
permitDataand the transaction with its own wallet - Free with no per-call charge, 21 chains for classic swaps and UniswapX on 10 of them
Weaknesses
- No official MCP server; the registry's Uniswap entries are third parties
- No status page, no SLA and no sandbox; tests use production endpoints on testnets
- A single
x-api-keyper key with 6 requests a second and no scopes; the dashboard is disallowed by robots.txt so key management is unchecked
Price FreeAuth API keyx402 NoLocal
Binance API
B 63.2/100Binance's API covers spot, margin and futures trading, market data and account endpoints over REST, WebSocket and FIX, with a free spot testnet and a remote MCP server, documented on 30 October 2026, that trades inside a dedicated Agentic sub-account.
Verdict Binance publishes numeric rate limits, a free testnet with FIX, connectors in eight languages and, since late October 2026, a remote MCP server that trades only in a dedicated sub-account with no withdrawal scope. There is no status page, the terms and privacy notice could not be read, and the MCP tool list is not published.
Best for An agent trading a funded Binance account outside the prohibited countries, with the deepest set of markets in this group and a free testnet.
Strengths
- Rate limits published as per-endpoint weights with 6,000 a minute, 50 orders per 10 seconds and Retry-After on 429 and 418
- Spot testnet with REST, WebSocket and FIX endpoints, virtual balances and production limits, free with a GitHub login
- Official remote MCP server with OAuth scopes, an isolated Agentic sub-account, no withdrawal scope and confirmation before writes
Weaknesses
- No status page or incident history found on binance.com or in the API docs
- The Terms of Use and privacy notice load by script and weren't read, so what they say about bots and API use is unknown
- The MCP server's tool list and schemas are not published; the docs describe four scopes
Price 0.1% feeAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoHosted
Coinbase Advanced Trade API
C 61.7/100Coinbase's Advanced Trade API is the trading API of a Coinbase account, with REST, WebSocket feeds and a static sandbox for spot, US futures and, since October 2026, perpetuals on a Deribit-based gateway, authenticated by CDP API keys.
Verdict Advanced Trade has a public OpenAPI spec, keys limited to view, trade or transfer and to one portfolio, and a keyless static sandbox. No REST rate limit is published, the fee schedule, user agreement and country list sit behind a bot check, and an agent that wants an MCP route uses the separate coinbase-mcp listing.
Best for An agent trading a person's or a treasury's Coinbase account with its own key, where the person wants sandbox tests and portfolio scoping.
Strengths
- Public OpenAPI 3.1 and AsyncAPI specs with typed enums, plus llms.txt and a Markdown twin of every docs page
- CDP keys carry view, trade and transfer permissions, a portfolio restriction and an IP allowlist, and signed JWTs expire after 2 minutes
- Keyless sandbox with static responses and header-driven error simulation for accounts and orders
Weaknesses
- No REST rate limit numbers found; the old rate-limits page answers 404 and only the WebSocket limit of 8 per second per IP is published
- The fee schedule, user agreement, privacy policy and supported-countries pages answered a bot check and were not read
- No FIX connectivity is documented for Advanced Trade
Price Pay per useAuth OAuth or keyx402 NoLocal
Coinbase MCP server (Coinbase for Agents)
C 60/100Coinbase's remote MCP server connects an agent to a person's Coinbase account to trade crypto, eligible US stocks and futures, manage portfolios and pay for x402 data from the account's USDC balance, after the person signs in with OAuth.
Verdict Coinbase's remote MCP gives an agent OAuth access to a person's Coinbase account, with ten scopes, per-portfolio grants, revocation from account settings and client order IDs for safe retries. Only allowlisted clients can connect, the tool schemas aren't public, no rate limit is published and no server-side limit on order size is documented.
Best for An agent acting in a person's own Coinbase account, trading spot crypto, US futures and eligible US stocks and paying for market research by x402.
Strengths
- OAuth with PKCE S256, ten
mcp:*scopes, and a consent screen where the person picks the portfolios the agent may use - Access is revoked from Coinbase Account > Security > Connections, and transfers move funds only between the person's own portfolios
- Orders take a
client_order_idthat returns the existing order on retry, and x402 payments anidempotency_keykept for the same payment
Weaknesses
- Only clients Coinbase has allowlisted can connect; other agents need the local CLI and a CDP API key
tools/listneeds a signed-in account, so tool schemas and annotations can't be read before connecting- No numeric rate limit for the remote server, no SLA and no status component for it
Price FreeAuth OAuthx402 Payer tooling onlyHosted and local
Deribit
C 59/100Deribit is a crypto options, futures and perpetuals exchange owned by Coinbase, with a JSON-RPC API over WebSocket and HTTP, a FIX API and a test environment at test.deribit.com.
Verdict Deribit's JSON-RPC API has scoped keys with IP and expiry limits, asymmetric signing, an OpenAPI file, numeric rate limits and a 64-entry changelog. There is no official MCP server or client library, the fee schedule, terms and privacy policy sit on a support site that refused our reader, and the status page did not resolve.
Best for An agent trading crypto options, dated futures and perpetuals for an institutional or retail Deribit account, and anyone migrated from Coinbase International Exchange.
Strengths
- Keys carry
account,trade,wallet,block_tradeandblock_rfqscopes at read, read_write or none, withip:ADDRandexpireslimits, and Ed25519 or RSA keys keep the private half off Deribit - OpenAPI 3.0 and AsyncAPI files, llms.txt indexes and Markdown twins for every reference page
- Credit-based rate limits with numbers, per sub-account, and an errors page of about 159 codes with retry guidance (10028 back off, 10040 retry, 13009 refresh)
Weaknesses
- No official MCP server, and the GitHub organisation has no public repositories, so no official SDK in any language
- The fee schedule, terms of service, privacy policy and restricted-jurisdictions list are on support.deribit.com, which answered 403, so the lowest-tier maker and taker fees are unchecked
- status.deribit.com did not resolve for our reader and Coinbase's status page has no Deribit component we could find, so the incident record is unchecked
Price 0.02% feeAuth API keyx402 NoLocal
Bitfinex API
C 58.4/100Bitfinex's v2 API for spot, margin, derivatives and peer-to-peer funding, with balances, deposits and withdrawals, through REST and WebSocket with scoped API keys, paper-trading sub-accounts and official Node, Python, Go and Ruby clients.
Verdict Bitfinex gives an agent scoped keys with a separate withdraw permission, paper-trading sub-accounts on the production API, llms.txt and official clients in four languages. There is no official MCP server, responses are positional arrays with empty error bodies, rate limits run 10 to 90 a minute per IP, and the terms, API terms and privacy statement could not be read.
Best for An agent trading spot, margin or derivatives, or lending on the funding market, with scoped keys, official clients and paper trading.
Strengths
- Per-scope read and write permissions on each key, including a separate
withdrawscope, readable back from the permissions endpoint - Paper trading on a sub-account against test symbols on the same production API, with no money at risk
- llms.txt with a Markdown twin of every docs page, and official Node, Python, Go and Ruby clients
Weaknesses
- No official MCP server, OpenAPI file or AsyncAPI file; the registry's Bitfinex servers are third parties proxying public market data
- Responses are positional arrays and authenticated errors answer 400 with an empty object, so an agent must map indexes and guess causes
- Rate limits of 10 to 90 requests a minute per IP with a 60-second block and no Retry-After
Price 0% feeAuth API keyx402 NoLocal
Head to head
- Gemini Exchange API vs Kraken API BB 74.6 vs BB 71
- dYdX vs Gemini Exchange API B 69.5 vs BB 74.6
- Gemini Exchange API vs OKX API BB 74.6 vs B 64.3
- Gemini Exchange API vs Uniswap Trading API BB 74.6 vs B 63.3
- dYdX vs Kraken API B 69.5 vs BB 71
- Kraken API vs OKX API BB 71 vs B 64.3
- Kraken API vs Uniswap Trading API BB 71 vs B 63.3
- dYdX vs OKX API B 69.5 vs B 64.3
- dYdX vs Uniswap Trading API B 69.5 vs B 63.3
- OKX API vs Uniswap Trading API B 64.3 vs B 63.3
Questions
What are the highest-rated crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers for AI agents?
Gemini Exchange API has the highest benchmark score of the 21 ranked crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers, 74.6 (BB). Kraken API is second with 71 (BB).
How many crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers are agent-ready?
2 of the 21 ranked here grade BB or better, the bar for agent-ready on the Anchor benchmark.
Which crypto exchange APIs and MCP servers accept x402 payments?
None of the ranked listings here accepts x402 for its main call yet.
How is this list ranked?
By the Anchor benchmark score out of 100, a weighted mean of the scored categories minus deductions for negative events, from public evidence re-checked as vendors change. Listings cannot pay for a place. The latest assessment behind this page is from 3 November 2026.
How this list is made
The order is the Anchor benchmark score, the same number as on each listing and in the top list. Each listing is graded from public evidence against the benchmark checklist, and the picks above are worked out from those grades, prices and facts. No listing pays for its place, and paid audits or listing help never change a score.
Full ranked table · 210 head-to-head comparisons · Best tools in every category