API – a dream and a nightmare.
My favourite thing about APIs is being able to retrieve data without the need to download a file but can also be tricky to avoid your API key getting block from querying too much.
Check out my Day 3 dashboard here: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/kier.bituin/viz/VolatilityintheTop200Cryptocurrencies/VolatilityinTop195Cryptosatleast40Daysold
Day 3 Challenge Data
Our data for today was from the CoinPaprika Crypto API which holds trading price information about a whole bunch of cryptocurrencies, the markets and exchanges. As it was coming from an API, I was worried that I would reach the limit and get blocked but I was fortunate to not run into that problem as I was trying to download 4 years worth of daily trading price data for the top 200 cryptocurrencies at the time.
Alteryx and the 6 Step API Process
In my introduction to APIs, I was taught about the 6 tools (sometimes more) in Alteryx when combined together can neatly retrieve the data from an API. Not all APIs are the same so some tweaks are still required but these tools give you a great head start.
As mentioned before, I was not impeded by the limit of queries for the API but I still played it safe by testing a few at a time before I was ready for the big haul of data that took a while to finish the workflow.
After that I did some research on what indicators are used to determine volatility and integrated those calculations to my workflow.
Learning about Volatility of Cryptocurrencies in Tableau
Once the data was sorted, I knew wanted to try and make a candlestick chart for the first time. My fellow DSAU9 cohort member, Binbin, posted a blog on how to make it which actually helped make it possible. Check out his tutorial here.
I also had fun with the volatility indicators and trying to somewhat replicate what a technical trader see on their screen when they are buying or selling shares and putting the Tableau twist to it.
I also played around with sets and combining sets together and then using parameters to switch between sets. Sets, Sets, Set and more Sets. These sets played an integral part of my Viz to help make it more interactive when combining it with parameters.
Insights from my Viz
Here is what I learned about volatility in Cryptocurrencies:
- According to each metrics the least volatile coins and tokens are the Stablecoins such as Tether and Gemini Dollar
- PalGold only started for trading a few months ago but tops 2 of my metrics for volatility
- Vechain had a period from January 2018 to August 2018 that showed a lot of volatility but stayed relatively stable since as the value of it plummeted
- The Top 2 coins, Bitcoin and Ethereum, are relatively stable compared to the rest of the market.
- Hex (ranked 4th) on the other hand was found to be quite volatile especially in the recent months
Thank you for reading! 2 more sleeps and we’re done!
I had a lot of fun with this data because I got to challenge my own perceptions about Cryptocurrency.
