It was a busy and hectic, but productive, year at Suredbits. We released a number of new services and technologies in 2019 that furthers the goal of democratizing data. We are proud of our accomplishments and humbled by the support and growth of the Lightning community. Here is a brief review of some of the milestones and achievements of 2019.
Crypto Spot Exchange API
We started the year adding more depth and breadth to our Spot Exchange API service. We wanted to provide crypto traders and investors data from the most liquid trading pairs from the most reputable exchanges. We iteratively added additional exchanges and trading pairs.
Below is the list of exchanges we added in 2019 for our Crypto Spot Exchange API:
As mentioned, we wanted to add the most popular and liquid trading pairs for customers. We launched with support for Bitcoin and Ethereum. We then added the following pairs, including support for Euros.
Crypto Futures API
In March, we launched our Crypto Futures API. Bitmex and Kraken futures, particularly the perpetual swaps, are incredibly popular among crypto traders. We knew we wanted to offer this data for Lighting users. Our Futures API offer now supports 10 different trading pairs across 21 different contracts (perpetual, quarterly and biquarterly).
Bitcoin-S
On the 31st of May, we released version 0.1.0 of Bitcoin-S. Bitcoin-S is a feature-rich toolkit for making Bitcoin and Lightning Applications, written in Scala. It can be used on all JVM platforms, such as Java, Scala, Kotlin, Groovy and Clojure.
This is the first proper release of the library on Maven Central, making it available to all users of JVM languages. This dedicated site contains guides to using the Bitcoin-S libraries, the complete Scala docs and contact information on how to get in touch with the Bitcoin-S developers. Our goal with Bitcoin-S is to be a modern and safe alternative to libraries like Bitcoin J.
Data Playground
While Suredbit’s isn’t a web application company, we wanted to present a clear and easy to use interface for people interested in checking out how our application works. Using Lightning to buy custom data is new to experience developers and traders as well as novices.
The playground is intended to assist developers explore, test and familiarize themselves with our API services. We made all of our data services – Crypto data including historical and Sports APIs – available.
On the Playground, developers can construct requests to our API easily and see responses in real-time. For requests that require payment, we display a QR code you can either click on to open your Lightning wallet or scan with your mobile phone.
Our goal is to always make it as easy as possible to build on our platform. Using the Playground along with our JS library to develop your application, developers and traders should be able to start building in a matter of minutes.
Historical Crypto Prices API
One of the most exciting services we released in 2019 was our Historical Prices API. Rolled out in August, our Historical prices service has proven to be consistently one of our most popular. It offers full support for all Spot API trading pairs and perpetual Futures contracts going back to 2018 and 2019 for some trading pairs. As with our Spot and Futures service, customers can query for the exchange they want, the trading pair, what year and by three different periods: daily, weekly or monthly.
PAID APIs
In August, we rolled out a new and innovative way to pay for services using Lightning known as Payment Atomic Information Decryption a.k.a. “PAID” APIs. This new method allows for more efficient payment on the Lightning Network by reducing latency. It also guarantees delivery for a buyer of data as well as payment for the seller. For more details, check out this post.
We are working to improve our PAID API and advocate its wider adoption as a new standard for Lightning Payment. We believe the Network will benefit from improved user experience and interoperable, seamless payments.
Lightning Conference
We were happy to participate in the first ever Lightning Conference in Berlin in October. The conference and complementary events were full of energy, creativity and collaboration as developers, entrepreneurs, investors and Lightning enthusiasts gathered to share ideas, challenges and demonstrate applications and projects.
Suredbits Founder Chris Stewart gave a talk on how crypto exchanges can manage security through effective private key management. And Suredbits developer Nadav Kohen presented on Payment Points.
For more details and to see Chris and Nadav’s presentations, check out our full review of the Lighting Conference here.
Neutrino
Though it is still in production, we have been working diligently to implement Neutrino for Bitcoin-S. Neutrino offers the ability to scale the advantages of bitcoin on the Lightning Network; easier onboarding, more privacy and security that comes with greater decentralization.
For more details about the benefits of Neutrino and to learn about some of our experiences implementing it, check out our Neutrino series of posts here.
Discreet Log Contracts (DLC)
Since Blockstream and Crypto Garage executed a proof-of-concept DLC, we have been excited about the potential of this new technology and what it could mean for decentralized financial services. We have been actively working on our own proof-of-concept – binary constructions and validation, test vectors, and so forth – with ideas for what innovative solutions this could lead to. Specific to Lightning, we have built a Lightning powered Oracle service.
We have been working collaboratively with our friends at Crypto Garage to develop interoperability standards to promote the long-term development and growth of DLCs.
We expect to have a beta version available for testing in early 2020. For more information and background on Discreet Log Contracts, check out our DLC content page here.
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All of our API services, for both Cryptocurrency APIs as well as Sports APIs, are built using Lightning technology and the Lightning Network. All API services are live on Bitcoin’s mainnet. Our fully customizable data service allows customers to stream as much or as little data as they wish and pay using bitcoin.
You can connect to our Lightning node at the url:
038bdb5538a4e415c42f8fb09750729752c1a1800d321f4bb056a9f582569fbf8e@ln.suredbits.com
To learn more about how our Lightning APIs work please visit our API documentation or checkout our Websocket Playground to start exploring fully customized data feeds.
If you are a company or cryptocurrency exchange interested in learning more about how Lightning can help grow your business, contact us at [email protected].