CoinDesk

Query live and historical crypto spot, futures, options, index and news data.

Add to Agentman Studio

Opens Agent Studio, where connecting is one click. The connector URL below works in any MCP client.

Paste it into any MCP client. Setup docs

Resources

What the CoinDesk connector does

The CoinDesk MCP server connects CoinDesk Data — the institutional crypto market-data and index business formerly trading as CryptoCompare — to Claude, ChatGPT and any MCP-compatible agent. CoinDesk's own page lists 39 tools covering spot, futures, options, indices, on-chain DEX activity and news. Every one reads; none writes. Sign-in is OAuth 2.0 with PKCE wrapping your CoinDesk API key.

Verified connector

Listed by Anthropic as a partner connector in its Connectors Directory.

Connection checked by Agentman on .

Anthropic states this reflects the level of review a connector received, not a security audit.

CoinDesk tools (39)

  • fetch_spot_instruments
  • fetch_spot_tick
  • fetch_spot_ohlcv
  • fetch_spot_orderbook
  • fetch_spot_trades
  • fetch_spot_toplist
  • fetch_index_tick
  • fetch_index_ohlcv
  • fetch_futures_instruments
  • fetch_futures_tick
  • fetch_futures_ohlcv
  • fetch_futures_oi_tick
  • fetch_futures_oi_ohlcv
  • fetch_futures_fr_tick
  • fetch_futures_fr_ohlcv
  • fetch_futures_orderbook
  • fetch_futures_trades
  • fetch_options_instruments
  • fetch_options_tick
  • fetch_options_ohlcv
  • fetch_options_oi_tick
  • fetch_options_oi_ohlcv
  • fetch_options_orderbook
  • fetch_news

Tool names from Anthropic's directory listing. This server requires sign-in, so we could not read tool descriptions or parameter schemas.

Limits

  • The licence is the binding constraint, not the tool surface. Internal use only, no Display without written permission, no Index or Financial Product. Most of what people want an agent for — answering a colleague, powering a dashboard, feeding a signal — is addressed by one of those three clauses. Read the agreement before deploying, and get written permission where the use goes beyond your own desk.
  • The agreement says nothing about AI, RAG or model training. Verified across the full text on 2026-08-22. That is a gap in the drafting rather than a grant, and it leaves agent use to be judged under clauses written for conventional applications.
  • No OAuth scope boundary exists. scopes_supported is declared as an empty array and the RFC 9728 descriptor omits the field. Nothing at consent distinguishes one dataset from another. The read-only property comes from the API being GET-only.
  • Anthropic's directory under-lists by 15 tools and names 3 that CoinDesk does not. Any client built against the directory's fetch_spot_orderbook, fetch_futures_orderbook or fetch_options_orderbook is calling names the vendor no longer publishes.
  • We could not read tool schemas or safety annotations. The endpoint returned 401 to an anonymous initialize on 2026-08-22, so no readOnlyHint, destructiveHint or parameter detail is published here. The read-only classification rests on the vendor's names and the GET-only specification, not on the server's own declaration.
  • Some data needs a paid plan. The specification annotates endpoints with x-roles-required; 33 paths require premium alongside free, and five require a forex_rates_viewer role. A tool that works on one account may return an authorisation error on another, and the tool list gives no hint which.
  • No tool reports rate-limit status. The accounting endpoint exists in the API and is not exposed through MCP. Plan long historical pulls deliberately.
  • Thirty-five of the 184 API paths are tagged Deprecated, including several /v1/markets endpoints superseded by /v2/. Which MCP tool maps to which version is not published, so a tool may sit on a deprecated path without saying so.
  • The data is not intended for trading. CoinDesk's clause 10.1.1 states this outright and has you acknowledge that interpreting the data requires specialist market knowledge. Responses are cached — the specification declares cache windows from 0 to 3,600 seconds per endpoint — so a "current" price may be up to an hour old depending on which endpoint answered.
  • developers.coindesk.com serves one SPA shell for every path. /llms.txt, /faq/ and /documentation all returned a byte-identical 7,844-byte Nuxt shell on 2026-08-22. The Special Terms the licence points to at /faq/ could not be read, so no claim is made about what they add. The machine-readable specification was recovered from the URL the site's own JavaScript bundle fetches.

Frequently asked questions

Can the CoinDesk MCP server place a trade or move funds?

No. Every one of the 39 tools CoinDesk lists begins with fetch, and the OpenAPI specification behind them defines 184 paths of which all 184 are GET. There is no POST, PUT, PATCH or DELETE anywhere in the surface. The connector reads market data and news, and nothing in it can write to an exchange or an account.

How many tools does the CoinDesk MCP server have?

CoinDesk's own page lists 39, and Anthropic's directory lists 24. The eighteen names the directory omits include the entire on-chain DEX group and both split orderbook tools. Three directory names, such as fetch_spot_orderbook, appear on no CoinDesk page at all. Trust CoinDesk's list and expect the directory to lag.

Am I allowed to show CoinDesk data from an agent to my users?

Not without written permission. CoinDesk's API Licence Agreement grants an internal-use-only licence and clause 2.4.1 forbids using licenced data for Display purposes, which the Schedule defines as making it available for viewing on a website or through an application. An agent surfacing a price to anyone but you is likely a Display use.

Does the CoinDesk connector cost money per call?

No call is billed individually, but every call consumes your account's rate-limit allowance. CoinDesk enforces limits at account level across all API keys, at second, minute, hour, day and month granularity, and returns HTTP 429 on breach. No MCP tool reports remaining allowance, so an agent cannot check before spending it.

What do I need before connecting CoinDesk to Claude?

A CoinDesk Data API key. CoinDesk's MCP page states the server uses OAuth 2.0 with PKCE and that on first connection you are prompted to enter your API key, which is then encrypted and used to authenticate requests on your behalf. Existing customers find the key in developer settings; others must register interest first.

Is CoinDesk news text safe to feed into an agent?

Treat it as untrusted input. The news endpoints return a BODY field carrying article text sourced from third-party outlets rather than CoinDesk alone. Any publisher whose feed CoinDesk ingests can therefore place text into your agent's context, which makes fetch_news a prompt-injection surface. Read retrieved articles as data, never as instructions.

Can I use CoinDesk MCP data to build a trading signal or an index?

No. Clause 2.4.3 of CoinDesk's API Licence Agreement forbids using licenced data to create or in connection with any Index or Financial Product, and clause 10.1.1 has you acknowledge the data is not intended for trading purposes. Both definitions in the Schedule are drawn broadly.

What OAuth scopes does the CoinDesk MCP server request?

None. The server's authorization server metadata declared scopes_supported as an empty array on 2026-08-22, and its RFC 9728 resource descriptor omits the field entirely. There is no scope boundary at consent. The read-only boundary here comes from the API being GET-only, not from anything the OAuth grant enforces.

Sources

More Finance connectors

  • Affinity

    Search your CRM, prep for meetings and update deal records from your AI assistant.

  • Aiera

    Pull earnings-call transcripts, event calendars, SEC filings and company publications into your AI assistant.

  • Airwallex Developer

    Search Airwallex documentation and exercise a sandbox account from an AI agent.

Browse all MCP connectorsClaude and ChatGPT setup guideBrowse AI skills

Product names and logos belong to their owners. Agentman is not affiliated with a connector's maker unless the page says the connector is built and run by Agentman.

Use it in an agent

Put CoinDesk to work.

Connect CoinDesk once and your agents call these tools on their own: on a schedule, in a workflow, with nobody at the keyboard.

Open in Agentman Studio