MtGox/API/Streaming

Real time streaming data may be obtained over the streaming API, implemented in Socket.io^[1]. The original WebSocket API^[2] is deprecated as of 11-Nov-2011.

Connecting

Host: websocket.mtgox.com or socketio.mtgox.com
Port: 443 or 443 ( ssl )
Namespace: /mtgox (Including beginning slash)

The following JavaScript code establishes a connection in the browser:

<script src="https://socketio.mtgox.com/socket.io/socket.io.js"></script>
<script>
    var conn = io.connect('https://socketio.mtgox.com/mtgox');
    conn.on('message', function(data) {
        // Handle incoming data object.
    });
</script>

the Currency parameter

use : websocket.mtgox.com:80/mtgox?Currency=EUR

and the websocket will give you updates in EUR currency

if you need need more than one currency, you can add currency symbols like that :

websocket.mtgox.com:80/mtgox?Currency=EUR,USD

websocket.mtgox.com:80/mtgox?Currency=EUR,USD,CHF

find the list of currency symbols on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/MtGox/API#Currency_Symbols

The session ID expires after 30 seconds

Handling Events

Socket.io exposes a simple interface for handling events. Handling message events is shown above, but there are other events that may be handled:

conn.on('connect',    onConnect);
conn.on('disconnect', onDisconnect);
conn.on('error',      onError);
conn.on('message',    onMessage);

Incoming Data

Data arrives as a full object instead of as JSON text, eliminating the need to parse the data in the JavaScript handler. Messages that come across the socket to trigger the message event will contain the following minimum components:

{
  "op":<OPERATION_TYPE>
}

The OPERATION_TYPE field may take these values:

OPERATION_TYPE	Description
subscribe	Notification that the user is subscribed to a channel
unsubscribe	Messages will no longer arrive over the channel
remark	A server message, usually a warning
private	The operation for depth, trade, and ticker messages
result	The response for op:call operations

op:subscribe and op:unsubscribe

The subscribe and unsubscribe message data are very simple, containing the channel and the operation.

{
  "channel":<CHANNEL_ID>,
  "op":"subscribe" OR "unsubscribe"
}

Some of the channels are:

Channel ID	Description
dbf1dee9-4f2e-4a08-8cb7-748919a71b21	Trades
d5f06780-30a8-4a48-a2f8-7ed181b4a13f	Ticker
24e67e0d-1cad-4cc0-9e7a-f8523ef460fe	Depth

op:remark

The remark operation contains message and success fields.

{
  "op":"remark",
  "message":<MESSAGE FROM THE SERVER>,
  "success":<boolean>
}

op:private

The payloads of the op:private messages contain the real time market information. Each message follows this form:

{
  "channel":<CHANNEL_ID>,
  "op":"private",
  "private":<MESSAGE_TYPE>,
  <MESSAGE_TYPE>:<DATA_PAYLOAD>
}

The MESSAGE_TYPE field may take the values:

MESSAGE_TYPE	Description
ticker	Ticker messages
trade	Trades, as they occur
depth	Orders placed or removed
result	The result of a websocket-encapsulated version 1 HTTP API request

Ticker

Ticker messages contain the current inside Bid and Ask as well as daily highs, lows, and volume. The fields contained in the ticker match those defined in the version 1.0 API above. All fields contain currency, display, value, and value_int entries.

{
  "channel":"d5f06780-30a8-4a48-a2f8-7ed181b4a13f",
  "op":"private",
  "origin":"broadcast",
  "private":"ticker",
  "ticker":{
    "avg":{
      "currency":"USD",
      "display":"$2.26847",
      "value":"2.26847",
      "value_int":"226847"
    },
    "buy":{...},
    "high":{...},
    "last":{..},
    "last_local":{...},
    "last_orig":{...},
    "low":{...},
    "sell":{...},
    "vol":{
      "currency":"BTC",
      "display":"118,696.02104208",
      "value":"118696.02104208",
      "value_int":"11869602104208"
    },
    "vwap":{...}
  }
}

Trade

{
  "channel":"dbf1dee9-4f2e-4a08-8cb7-748919a71b21",
  "op":"private",
  "origin":"broadcast",
  "private":"trade",
  "trade":{
    "amount":2.71,
    "amount_int":"271000000",
    "date":1310279340,
    "item":"BTC",
    "price":14.43,
    "price_currency":"USD",
    "price_int":"1443000",
    "primary":"Y",
    "properties":"limit, mixed_currency",
    "tid":"1310279340877902",
    "trade_type":"bid",
    "type":"trade"
  }
}

trade contains the following:

Name	Value
amount	the traded amount in item (BTC), float, deprecated
amount_int	the traded amount * 1E8
date	unix timestamp of trade
item	What was this trade about
price	price per unit, float, deprecated
price_int	price in smallest unit as integer (5 decimals of USD, 3 in case of JPY)
price_currency	currency in which trade was completed
properties	"market": the trade ate the whole order, "limit": the trade ate the order partially - some of the original order still exists
tid	Trade id (big integer, which is in fact trade timestamp in microseconds)
trade_type	Did this trade result from the execution of a bid or a ask?

Depth

Changes to the market depth data are broadcast so an up-to-date market depth can be kept by clients.

{
  "channel":"24e67e0d-1cad-4cc0-9e7a-f8523ef460fe",
  "depth":{
    "currency":"USD",
    "item":"BTC",
    "now":"1323644358437819",
    "price":"14.43",
    "price_int":"1443000",
    "total_volume_int":"849766000",
    "type":1,
    "type_str":"ask",
    "volume":"-2.71",
    "volume_int":"-271000000"
  },
  "op":"private",
  "origin":"broadcast",
  "private":"depth"
}

depth contains the following:

Name	Value
currency	the currency affected
item	the item (BTC)
price	price as a float, deprecated
total_volume_int	total volume at this price, after applying the depth update, can be used as a starting point before applying subsequent updates.
price_int	the price at which volume change happened (5 decimal for USD, 3 for JPY)
type	1=ask, 2=bid. deprecated, use type_str
type_str	type of order at this depth, either "ask" or "bid"
volume	the volume change as float, deprecated
volume_int	volume change * 1E8

op:result

Output from HTTP API version 1 requests that were sent over the websocket.

{
    "id":<REQUEST ID>,
    "op":"result",
    "result": {
        ...
    }
}

"result" contains the result of the call the same as if it were called over the HTTP API. <REQUEST ID> is the ID chosen by you when the request was sent.

Private per-account messages

The streaming API provides a private channel for every user which receives updates for account-related activities like new orders being created. To subscribe, do:

{
    "op":"mtgox.subscribe",
    "key":<PRIVATE_IDKEY>
}

<PRIVATE_IDKEY> is obtained by sending a request to generic/private/idkey in the version 1 API. Either over HTTP or through the websocket using op:call.

user_order

user_order is sent when a the status of a user's order is changed.

{
    "channel":  <USER CHANNEL GUID>
    "op": "private".
    "origin": "broadcast",
    "private": "user_order".
    "user_order": {
        "amount": {
            "currency": "BTC",
            "display": "1.00000000\U00a0BTC",
            "value": "1.00000000",
            "value_int": "100000000"
        },
        "currency": "USD",
        "date": "1330522328",
        "item": "BTC",
        "oid": <ORDER GUID>,
        "price": {
            "currency": "USD",
            "display": "$10.00000",
            "value": "10.00000",
            "value_int": "1000000",
        };
        "status": <ORDER STATUS>,
        "type": <ORDER TYPE>,
    };
}

Name	Value
USER CHANNEL GUID	GUID of private user channel
ORDER GUID	GUID of order
ORDER STATUS	New status of the order. Valid states are: pending, post-pending, open, executing, invalid, or stop.
ORDER TYPE	bid or ask

When an order is cancelled, the "user_order" field only contains the "oid", and none of the other fields.

wallet

Updates to the user's wallet balance.

{
    "channel": <USER CHANNEL GUID>,
    "op": "private",
    "origin": "broadcast",
    "private": "wallet",
    "wallet": {
        "op": <UPDATE SOURCE>,
        "amount": {
            ...
        },
        "info": <UPDATE INFO>,
        "ref": <REFERENCE CODE>,
        "balance": {
            ...
        }
    }
}

"..." values above are normal 'amount' type dictionaries containing "currency", "value", "value_int", and "display".

Name	Value
USER CHANNEL GUID	GUID of private user channel
ORDER GUID	GUID of order
UPDATE SOURCE	Cause of the balance update. Can be: in, out, earned, spent, withdraw, or deposit
UPDATE INFO	Human readable string describing the update. Same string you see in the account history on mtgox.com
REFERENCE CODE	Reference code for bank transfers. "null" if this isn't a bank transfer.

Description of the different source types:

Source	Description
deposit	Account deposits
withdraw	Account withdrawals
earned	Amount of USD gained from a trade
spent	Amount of USD used for a trade
in	Amount of BTC gained from a trade
out	Amount of BTC used for a trade
fee	MtGox fees

trade

Trades that happen on behalf of a user whose private channel you're subscribed to issue trade messages with the same format as the public trades channel does. If you're subscribed to both, be careful not to take both into account during calculations, it might cause some hard to track down issues

Outgoing commands

Direct commands

Commands that can be sent without authentication

unsubscribe

Stop receiving messages from a channel

{
    "op":"unsubscribe", 
    "channel":<CHANNEL ID>
}

Responds with an identical message to confirm

mtgox.subscribe

Subscribe to a channel to start receiving messages from it.

{
    "op": "mtgox.subscribe",
    "type": "ticker"
}

"type" can be ticker, trades, or depth.

Authenticated commands

These commands require an API key and secret pair to sign requests. Any of the HTTP API version 1 methods can be called. Responses are op:result

{
    "op":"call",
    "id":<REQUEST ID>,
    "call":<BASE-64 ENCODED SIGNED REQUEST>,
    "context":"mtgox.com"
}

<REQUEST ID> can be any string, it's used to identify the response as belonging to this request when an answer comes back. md5'ing your nonce is a good way to get an id.

"call" must be a base-64 encoded string consisting of, in order: an API key, a signed copy of the request, and the request text itself.

The queries themselves look like:

{
    "id":<REQUEST ID>,
    "call":<HTTP API ENDPOINT>,
    "nonce":<REQUEST NONCE>,
    "params":<REQUEST PARAMETERS>,
    "item":"BTC"
}

<HTTP API ENDPOINT> is the last two path components of any version 1 API endpoint, for example private/info, or public/cancelledtrades.

<REQUEST PARAMETERS> is optional for any request that doesn't have parameters.

The signing process is similar to the HTTP API, but because we can't send headers in an open websocket, the API key and signed request are simply prepended to the actual query data and base64 encoded. Reference implementations are available at https://github.com/MtGox/websocket

Here's a sample of how to create a valid request in PHP 5.3:

$nonce = explode(' ', microtime(false));
$nonce = $nonce[1].substr($nonce[0], 2, 6);
$id = md5($nonce); // id can be anything to recognize this call
$query = array('call' => $call, 'params' => $params, 'item' => $item, 'currency' => $currency, 'id' => $id, 'nonce' => $nonce);
$query = json_encode($query);
// generate signature
$sign = hash_hmac('sha512', $query, base64_decode($apiSecret), true);
// prefix signature to query
$query = pack('H*', str_replace('-','',$apiKey)).$sign.$query;
// send query
$call = array('op' => 'call', 'call' => base64_encode($query), 'id' => $id, 'context' => 'mtgox.com');
// $call can now be pushed out to the websocket

examples

ticker

javascript, using hookio :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD5ljtNK72U

http://github.com/hookio

http://github.com/cronopio/hook.io-mtgox

Another node.js project, using plain websockets (largely based on cronopio's work) :

https://github.com/dlanod/node-mtgox-websocket-client

A python example : https://github.com/3M3RY/python-mtgox

A Java example: https://github.com/timmolter/XChange

arbitrage

websocket tools

https://github.com/cronopio/hook.io-ws

https://github.com/dlanod/node-mtgox-websocket-client

https://github.com/progrium/wssh

wssh websocket.mtgox.com:80/mtgox | grep depth 1>>depth.txt

https://github.com/sta/websocket-sharp

References

↑ Socket.io forum announcement by MagicalTux: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=14412.msg613271#msg613271
↑ Original WebSocket thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5855.msg86219

[1] Socket.io forum announcement by MagicalTux: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=14412.msg613271#msg613271

[2] Original WebSocket thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5855.msg86219

[1]

[2]

MtGox/API/Streaming

Contents

Connecting

the Currency parameter

Handling Events

Incoming Data

op:subscribe and op:unsubscribe

op:remark

op:private

Ticker

Trade

Depth

op:result

Private per-account messages

user_order

wallet

trade

Outgoing commands

Direct commands

unsubscribe

mtgox.subscribe

Authenticated commands

examples

ticker

arbitrage

websocket tools

See Also

References

Navigation menu

MtGox/API/Streaming

Connecting

the Currency parameter

Handling Events

Incoming Data

op:subscribe and op:unsubscribe

op:remark

op:private

Ticker

Trade

Depth

op:result

Private per-account messages

user_order

wallet

trade

Outgoing commands

Direct commands

unsubscribe

mtgox.subscribe

Authenticated commands

examples

ticker

arbitrage

websocket tools

See Also

References

Navigation menu

Search