CoinGecko MCP Server

An MCP server for CoinGecko — connect any MCP-compatible client to free crypto market data.

What is this?

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that gives AI assistants and agents access to CoinGecko's free crypto market data API — prices, market caps, trending coins, historical data, and global stats — through natural language.

Use it with Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, Continue, or any MCP-compatible client to ask questions about crypto markets, compare tokens, and track prices.

Why use this?

• No API key required — CoinGecko's free tier works out of the box (rate-limited to ~27 calls/min)
• 8 built-in tools — covers the most common crypto data queries
• Clean markdown output — results read naturally in chat
• Rate-limited automatically — respects free tier limits, retries on 429

Tools

Quick Start

1. Add to your MCP client

Add this to your MCP client config (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "coingecko": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "coingecko-mcp-server"]
    }
  }
}

That's it. No API key, no install step. npx downloads and runs it automatically.

2. Use it

Ask your AI assistant things like:

• "What's the current price of Bitcoin and Ethereum?"
• "Show me the top 10 coins by market cap"
• "What's trending on CoinGecko right now?"
• "Compare Solana, Avalanche, and Polkadot"
• "How has Bitcoin performed over the last 30 days?"
• "What's the total crypto market cap and BTC dominance?"
• "Search for AI-related crypto tokens"
• "Tell me about Chainlink — categories, links, market data"

Example Output

get_trending

🔥 Trending Coins (last 24h):

1. Bitcoin (BTC) — Rank #1 | MCap: $1,340.2B | 24h: +2.1%
2. Ethereum (ETH) — Rank #2 | MCap: $412.8B | 24h: +1.8%
3. Solana (SOL) — Rank #5 | MCap: $78.4B | 24h: +4.3%
...

get_token_price_comparison

Token Comparison (USD):

| Coin | Price | MCap | 24h | 7d | Vol |
|------|-------|------|-----|-----|-----|
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $67,234 | $1,340.2B | +2.1% | +5.3% | $28,400M |
| Ethereum (ETH) | $3,456 | $412.8B | +1.8% | +3.1% | $14,200M |
| Solana (SOL) | $178.5 | $78.4B | +4.3% | +12.1% | $3,800M |

Use Cases

Portfolio Research

Ask "What's my portfolio worth?" after listing your holdings. The server compares prices across multiple tokens and gives you a snapshot with market caps, 24h changes, and volume.

Yield Farming Research

"Show me trending coins with high volume" — find new opportunities by checking what's getting attention. Combine with get_coin_details to deep-dive into categories and links before committing.

Market Intelligence

"What's the total crypto market cap and BTC dominance?" gives you macro context in seconds. Use get_global_stats before making any allocation decision.

Token Comparison

"Compare Solana, Avalanche, and Polkadot" — side-by-side price, market cap, and performance data. Faster than opening three tabs on CoinGecko.

Historical Analysis

"How has Bitcoin performed over the last 30 days?" — daily price history for trend analysis. Works with any timeframe (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly).

Security

• No API key by default — uses CoinGecko's free tier. Optional API key for higher rate limits.
• Read-only — only fetches public market data from CoinGecko's API. No writes, no mutations.
• No local file access — does not read or write any files on your machine.
• No shell access — does not execute commands or spawn processes.
• Rate-limited — automatically caps requests to stay within free tier limits.
• Open source — MIT licensed. Inspect the code at GitHub.

Troubleshooting

Rate limit errors (429)

The server auto-retries on 429, but if you're making rapid queries, add a short delay between requests. Free tier allows ~27 calls/minute. If you hit this frequently, set a COINGECKO_API_KEY for higher limits.

"Coin not found" errors

Use search_coins first to find the correct CoinGecko ID. Coin IDs are lowercase slugs (e.g. bitcoin, ethereum, solana), not ticker symbols.

Server won't start

Make sure Node.js 18+ is installed: node --version. If using npx, ensure npm is up to date: npm install -g npm@latest.

MCP client can't connect

Verify the config path is correct. Claude Desktop uses ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS and %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows. Restart the client after config changes.

Slow responses

CoinGecko's free tier has ~300ms latency per call. Multi-coin queries (get_prices, get_token_price_comparison) make one API call regardless of how many coins you pass, so batch your queries.

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• No API key needed (CoinGecko free tier)

Rate Limits

The server automatically rate-limits requests to ~27 calls/minute to stay within CoinGecko's free tier. If you have a CoinGecko Pro API key, you can set the COINGECKO_API_KEY environment variable for higher limits:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "coingecko": {
      "command": "coingecko-mcp-server",
      "env": {
        "COINGECKO_API_KEY": "your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Development

git clone https://github.com/nova/coingecko-mcp-server.git
cd coingecko-mcp-server
npm install
npm run build
npm start

License

MIT