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

Tool	Description
`search_coins`	Search for cryptocurrencies by name or symbol
`get_prices`	Get current prices, market caps, and 24h changes for one or more coins
`get_market_overview`	Get top N coins by market cap with full stats
`get_trending`	Get currently trending coins (last 24h search volume)
`get_coin_details`	Get detailed info about a specific coin (description, links, market data, categories)
`get_price_history`	Get historical price data (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)
`get_global_stats`	Get global crypto market stats (total MCap, BTC dominance, active cryptos)
`get_token_price_comparison`	Compare prices and stats of multiple tokens side-by-side

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