plot crypto exchange rate time series

An interactive R Shiny application for visualizing cryptocurrency exchange rates and market data with real-time updates and historical time series analysis.

Features

Interactive Candlestick Charts: Visualize cryptocurrency price movements with open, high, low, and close data
Real-Time Market Data: Live prices and market statistics for the top 100 cryptocurrencies, refreshed every 10 minutes
Historical Analysis: View historical price data dating back to 2013
Advanced Filtering: Live search functionality to quickly find any cryptocurrency
Multiple Timeframes: Flexible date range selectors (7 days to all-time) with custom range slider
Volume Analysis: Dedicated volume charts to track trading activity
Moving Averages and Drawdown: 50- and 200-day moving averages on the price chart, and a chart of how far the price is below its all-time high
Market Metrics: Comprehensive market data including market cap, dominance, and 24h/7d/30d/60d/90d price changes
Color-Coded Performance: Heat-map style coloring for quick visual identification of price movements
Coin Comparison: Compare up to 10 coins, with their prices normalized to start at 100
Market Treemap: The top 100 coins sized by market cap and colored by their 24h change
Returns Calendar: Monthly returns by year for any coin
Light and Dark Mode: Switch with the toggle in the navigation bar
CSV Downloads: Download the data behind every tab as a CSV file

Quick Start

Installation Instructions

Prerequisites

R (≥ 4.0.0) - Download here
RStudio IDE (recommended) - Download here

install R

installation instructions can be found here: https://cran.r-project.org/
### install RStudio IDE (optional but a good idea)
installation instructions can be found here: https://posit.co/downloads/

Open RStudio (or an R console) and run:

# Install devtools if you haven't already
install.packages("devtools")
library(devtools)
# Install the crypto package from GitHub
install_github("sedzinfo/crypto")

CoinMarketCap API key

The market data comes from the CoinMarketCap API, which needs a free API key.

Sign up at coinmarketcap.com/api and copy your API key.
Open your .Renviron file:
```
usethis::edit_r_environ()
```
Add this line with your own key, save the file and restart R:
```
COINMARKETCAP_APIKEY=your-api-key
```

You can also pass the key directly with crypto(api_key = "your-api-key"). Keep the key out of your code and out of Git, because anyone who has it can use your API credits.

Usage

Launch the Shiny app with just two lines of code:

library(crypto)
crypto()

The application will open in your default web browser. Any shiny::shinyApp() option can be passed on, for example crypto(options = list(port = 8080)).

Using the Functions in R

The data, calculations and charts of the app are also available as functions, for scripts and R Markdown reports:

library(crypto)

# one coin since 2020: candlestick chart and monthly returns
btc <- get_history("Bitcoin (BTC)", as.Date("2020-01-01"))
plot_timeseries(btc)
plot_timeseries(btc, averages = c(20, 100))   # other moving averages
plot_returns_calendar(monthly_returns(btc), "Bitcoin (BTC)", mode = "dark")

# several coins over the last year, starting at 100
history <- get_history(c("Bitcoin (BTC)", "Ethereum (ETH)", "Solana (SOL)"))
plot_compare(normalize_prices(history))

# the top 100 coins, which needs the API key
listings <- get_listings()$data
plot_treemap(listings)
listings_table(listings)

Coins are picked by their label, such as "Bitcoin (BTC)", and get_coins()$name_symbol lists all of them. Downloads are reused: the price histories and the list of coins are kept on disk between R sessions (see Data Source), and the listings for 10 minutes.

Application Overview

Timeseries Tab

Search and select any cryptocurrency using the live search box
Candlestick chart showing price movements over time
Interactive chart with zoom, pan, and hover tooltips
Built-in date range selector with preset options
Volume chart synchronized with the main price chart
50- and 200-day moving averages; click a legend entry to hide or show a line
Drawdown chart: how far the price is below its all-time high

Top 100 Tab

Data table of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, refreshed every 10 minutes, with the time of the last update
Sortable columns for easy comparison
Color-coded performance indicators for quick insights
Key metrics including:
- Current price
- 24h volume and volume change
- Price changes across multiple timeframes (24h, 7d, 30d, 60d, 90d)
- Market cap and market dominance
- Fully diluted market cap

Compare Tab

Pick up to 10 coins and a start date
Each coin’s close price starts at 100 on the first date all of them have data, so their performance can be compared directly
Switch between a linear and a log scale

Treemap Tab

The top 100 coins, each box sized by market cap and colored from red to green by its 24h change

Returns Calendar Tab

Monthly returns by year for the coin selected in the Timeseries tab

Screenshots

Cryptocurrency Price Chart

Candlestick and volume chart of Bitcoin since 2013

Top 100 Market Overview

Table of the top 100 coins with color-coded price changes

Coin Comparison

Close prices of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether normalized to 100

Market Treemap (dark mode)

Treemap of the top 100 coins sized by market cap and colored by 24h change

Returns Calendar (dark mode)

Monthly returns of Bitcoin by year

Dependencies

This package relies on several R packages:

shiny - Web application framework
bslib - Bootstrap 5 theme and the light/dark mode toggle
plotly - Interactive plotting
DT - Interactive tables
shinyWidgets - Enhanced UI widgets
shinycssloaders - Loading spinners
crypto2 - Cryptocurrency historical data
coinmarketcapr - CoinMarketCap API integration

All dependencies will be automatically installed with the package.

Data Source

Market data is provided by CoinMarketCap through their API.

Price histories are downloaded with crypto2 and kept on disk between R sessions, in the folder given by tools::R_user_dir("crypto", "cache"). CoinMarketCap sends at most 400 days per request, so the first download of a coin’s full history takes about 13 requests; after that, only the days since the last download are fetched, in a single request. To keep the downloads somewhere else, set options(crypto.cache_dir = "path/to/folder"), and delete the folder to start over.

CoinMarketCap pauses clients that send too many requests in a short time. When that happens the R console shows Retrying in 60 seconds and the chart appears about a minute later.

Development

The package follows the layout of a golem app, without depending on golem:

File	Contents
`R/run_app.R`	`crypto()`, which starts the app
`R/app_ui.R`, `R/app_server.R`	The page layout and the server, which connect the modules
`R/mod_*.R`	One Shiny module per tab
`R/fct_data.R`	Downloads, and the cache of the market listings
`R/fct_calc.R`	Calculations: normalized prices and monthly returns
`R/fct_plots.R`	The plotly charts and the Top 100 table
`R/utils_helpers.R`	Color scales and light/dark mode helpers
`inst/app/www/`	Favicon and the keep-alive script
`tests/testthat/`	Tests, which run offline on small sample data

Run the tests with devtools::test(), and the full package check with devtools::check().

Deploying to shinyapps.io

app.R starts the app on shinyapps.io, with Google Analytics behind the cookie banner of the sedzinfo.github.io sites, and without the keep-alive pings, so the app goes to sleep when nobody uses it instead of using up the active hours of the plan. .rscignore keeps the upload to the files the app needs.

Create a .Renviron file in the package folder with COINMARKETCAP_APIKEY=your-api-key. It is uploaded with the app but never committed, as .gitignore lists it.
Connect your account once, with the rsconnect::setAccountInfo() line from Account, Tokens on shinyapps.io.
Run rsconnect::deployApp(appName = "crypto") from the package folder, or open app.R in RStudio and click Publish.