Crypto Trading (Official API)¶

pyhood wraps Robinhood's official, documented Crypto Trading API. This is separate from the unofficial API used for stocks and options.

Key Differences¶

	Stocks/Options	Crypto
API	Unofficial (reverse-engineered)	Official (documented)
Auth	OAuth + device approval	ED25519 API keys
Base URL	`api.robinhood.com`	`trading.robinhood.com`
Rate limits	Unknown	100 req/min, 300 burst
Human needed	First login + expired refresh	Never

Setup¶

1. Generate and register a key pair¶

Robinhood does not issue you a key pair. You generate one, register the public half at robinhood.com/account/crypto → API Trading → Add key, and Robinhood issues an API key that identifies it.

pyhood setup crypto

This generates the pair, shows you the public key to register, reads the API key back without echoing it, writes both to ~/.pyhood/crypto.env at mode 0600, and confirms with one signed read-only call that Robinhood accepts them. The private key is written straight to disk and never displayed.

See Setup for the full walkthrough, including rotation with --force.

2. Create a client¶

from pyhood.crypto import CryptoClient

crypto = CryptoClient()

Credentials resolve from RH_CRYPTO_API_KEY / RH_CRYPTO_PRIVATE_KEY, then from ~/.pyhood/crypto.env (override the path with PYHOOD_CRYPTO_ENV). Passing api_key= and private_key_base64= explicitly still works and takes precedence, but hardcoding them in source is how keys end up committed.

The private key is the credential

Anyone holding it can trade your crypto, and unlike a session token it cannot be refreshed — only revoked. Environment variables take precedence over the credentials file, so a stale export will silently shadow it; run pyhood setup to see which source is actually in use.

Market Data¶

Best Bid/Ask¶

quotes = crypto.get_best_bid_ask("BTC-USD", "ETH-USD")

for quote in quotes:
    print(f"{quote.symbol}: bid=${quote.bid:.2f} ask=${quote.ask:.2f}")

Estimated Price¶

Get the expected execution price including fees:

price = crypto.get_estimated_price("BTC-USD", "buy", 0.001)

print(f"Bid: ${price.bid_price:.2f}")
print(f"Ask: ${price.ask_price:.2f}")
print(f"Fee: ${price.fee:.2f}")

Trading Pairs¶

pairs = crypto.get_trading_pairs("BTC-USD", "ETH-USD")

for pair in pairs:
    print(f"{pair.symbol}: min={pair.min_order_size} max={pair.max_order_size}")

Account & Holdings¶

# Get account info
account = crypto.get_account()
print(f"Account: {account.account_number}")
print(f"Buying power: ${account.buying_power:.2f}")
print(f"Fee tier: {account.fee_tier}")

# Get holdings
holdings = crypto.get_holdings(account.account_number)
for h in holdings:
    print(f"{h.asset_code}: {h.quantity} (available: {h.available_quantity})")

Placing Orders¶

Market Order (by quantity)¶

order = crypto.place_order(
    account_number=account.account_number,
    side="buy",
    order_type="market",
    symbol="BTC-USD",
    order_config={"asset_quantity": "0.001"},
)
print(f"Order {order.order_id}: {order.status}")

Market Order (by dollar amount)¶

order = crypto.place_order(
    account_number=account.account_number,
    side="buy",
    order_type="market",
    symbol="BTC-USD",
    order_config={"notional_amount": "100.00"},  # Buy $100 of BTC
)

Limit Order¶

order = crypto.place_order(
    account_number=account.account_number,
    side="buy",
    order_type="limit",
    symbol="BTC-USD",
    order_config={
        "asset_quantity": "0.001",
        "limit_price": "60000.00",
    },
)

Managing Orders¶

# Get all orders
orders = crypto.get_orders(account.account_number)
for order in orders:
    print(f"{order.symbol} {order.side} {order.status}")

# Get specific order
order = crypto.get_order(account.account_number, "order-id-here")

# Cancel an order
crypto.cancel_order("order-id-here")

Authentication Details¶

Every request is signed with ED25519:

message = f"{api_key}{timestamp}{path}{method}{body}"
signature = ed25519_sign(message, private_key)

Three headers are sent:

Header	Value
`x-api-key`	Your API key
`x-signature`	Base64-encoded ED25519 signature
`x-timestamp`	Unix timestamp (valid for 30 seconds)

pyhood handles all of this automatically.

Rate Limits¶

The official API has documented rate limits:

100 requests per minute per account
300 requests per minute burst capacity
Token bucket with automatic refill

pyhood includes a built-in token bucket rate limiter that tracks your usage and prevents you from hitting limits.