Developer Experience with Pyth.Network API's

By: Rashmi V Abbigeri , Twitter: @rashmivabbigeri , Github: @Rashmi-278

Abstract

Smart contracts which are built upon blockchains open up oppurtunities for a wide range of possible financial tools and mechanisms. Some of which need to consume data from external sources. Pyth Network is an cross-chain publish-subscribe design oracle which sources the price data of digital assets such as Bitcoin/USD and commodities such as Crude oil.

Pyth Network Sources this data from various institutional firms listed here, https://www.pyth.network/publishers

They make this data available via API's and Pyth Smart Contracts

Testing the APIs

Pyth has three API Categories

1. Price feeds
2. Benchmark
3. Entropy

1. Price Feeds

Price Feed set of APIs focus on retrieving and managing price data, including Exponential Moving Averages (EMA) and general price feeds. They also handle updating feeds, parsing updates, and managing related fees and time periods.

Currently only EVM Chains are supported.

The following are the listed API's

• getEmaPriceNoOlderThan
• getEmaPriceUnsafe
• getPriceNoOlderThan
• getPriceUnsafe
• getUpdateFee
• parsePriceFeedUpdates
• parsePriceFeedUpdatesUnique
• updatePriceFeeds
• updatePriceFeedsIfNecessary

getEmaPriceNoOlderThan

getEmaPriceUnsafe

getPriceNoOlderThan

getPriceUnsafe

getUpdateFee

Input:

• ID: Crypto.BTC/USD
  (ID Hex: 0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43)
• Age: 600 - 1 seconds
• Chain: Base

Output:

{
    "price": 9141311600000n,
    "conf": 4222594000n,
    "expo": -8,
    "publishTime": 1731754339n
}

• I tested this same input across multiple endpoints mentioned above to check consistency and response handling.

Observation:

• Tested a range of age values in seconds (from 600 down to 1). In most cases, a Stale Price response was received for age < 60 values.
• For example

This information is helpful to API consumers to calculate the refresh/refetch rate of a price

Commodities on Base:

• Attempting to retrieve commodity prices (e.g., crude oil) on the Base chain resulted in a Price Not Found error.

Feedback:

• It would enhance usability if assets that do not exist on a particular chain could be delisted or clearly marked as unsupported for that chain.
• We could discover and list the reason for Error: Price Not Found and add it as a Disclaimer

parsePriceFeedUpdates

parsePriceFeedUpdatesUnique

updatePriceFeeds

updatePriceFeedsIfNecessary

For priceUpdates, we need to fetch the price update data from Hermes API:

curl -X 'GET' \
  'https://hermes.pyth.network/v2/updates/price/latest?ids%5B%5D=0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43&encoding=hex&parsed=true&ignore_invalid_price_ids=true' \
  -H 'accept: application/json'

Feedback:
It would be helpful if the hex data returned from the API was already prefixed with 0x to align with input parameter format of the PriceFeedUpdate API's and avoid extra parsing steps.

2. Benchmarks

This set of API's provide historical data

TradingView Routes for Data Integration

The following TradingView API routes were tested and successfully returned valid responses:

• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/history
  Retrieves historical data
• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/groups
  Fetches data on groups.
• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/symbol_info
  Retrieves symbol information.
• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/symbols
  Resolves symbol data.
• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/search
  Searches for symbols.
• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/config
  Provides configuration data for the data feed.
• GET /v1/shims/tradingview/streaming
  Fetches streaming data.

Observation:

All the above-listed endpoints worked as expected and provided valid responses.

Price Feeds & Updates

Endpoints Tested:

• GET /v1/updates/price/{timestamp}
  Retrieves historical price updates for a provided timestamp.

• GET /v1/updates/price/{timestamp}/{interval}
  Retrieves historical price updates for a provided time interval.

Input Used:

• Timestamp: 1731761220
• Interval: 60
• ID: e62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43

Outcome:

Both API responses were successful and valid, providing the expected data for the given inputs.

3. Entropy

Entropy set of API endpoints provide verifiable randomn numbers

Observation:

It appears that the API reference documentation hasn't been updated yet: Pyth API Reference for Entropy.

I found the documentation for Entropy at this link: Pyth Network Entropy Docs.

Feedback:
Update documentation from Fortuna DOURO Labs to the API reference section.

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Sources:

• https://cointelegraph.com/learn/articles/what-is-a-blockchain-oracle-and-how-does-it-work
• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ema.asp
• https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/technical-analysis/technical-indicator-guide/ema
• https://docs.pyth.network/home
• https://github.com/pyth-network/pyth-examples/
• https://hermes.pyth.network/docs/#/rest/latest_price_updates
• https://api-reference.pyth.network/
• https://docs.pyth.network/entropy