10 Best APIs for Crypto in Nigeria

Global cryptocurrency exchange with institutional-grade APIs and liquidity tools. Bitget provides comprehensive trading APIs, white-label solutions, and institutional features for fintechs and businesses wanting to integrate crypto trading. Strong platform for building crypto trading applications and investment platforms.

African cryptocurrency on/off-ramp platform with strong peer-to-peer (P2P) focus and merchant payment APIs. Yellow Card specializes in fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat conversions across Africa with excellent user experience. Provides merchant and API integrations for businesses wanting to accept and process cryptocurrencies across African markets.

Popular global cryptocurrency exchange with strong presence across Africa including Nigeria. Luno provides trading APIs, market data endpoints, and wallet integrations for developers. Good for applications needing crypto trading capabilities and market data integration. Supports both beginner and advanced traders.

Breet is a Nigerian crypto and stablecoin infrastructure company that enables businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments and automatically settle the proceeds in local fiat currency. The platform serves 400,000+ verified users and has executed over 500 million trades. Breet is regulated under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and certified by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) — making it one of Nigeria's most compliance-ready crypto payment providers. What the API Does The Breet API enables developers to: generate unique crypto deposit addresses per customer or transaction; accept payments in 13+ cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, USDC, Solana, Tron, BNB, Avalanche, XRP, TON, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Dogecoin; auto-convert received crypto to Nigerian Naira (NGN) or Ghanaian Cedi (GHS); settle converted fiat directly to a business bank account; and receive real-time webhook notifications for all transaction events. The entire flow — from crypto deposit to NGN bank settlement — can happen without manual intervention. How Developers Use It Developers sign up at breet.io, complete KYB verification (typically within 24 hours), and receive an App ID and App Secret for authentication. The API is REST-based with JSON responses. A live sandbox environment is available for testing the full integration before going live. The typical integration flow: generate a deposit address for a user or invoice, monitor webhooks for deposit events, and configure auto-settlement rules to push NGN to your bank account. Most integrations go live within days with dedicated integration support from Breet. Pricing Breet charges as low as 0.5% per transaction with no setup fees, no monthly subscription fees, and no hidden FX spreads. Developers can optionally add a 0 to 10% markup on top of the Breet base fee — creating an additional revenue stream from crypto payment processing. Volume-based rates are available for high-throughput businesses on request. Authentication All API calls require an App ID and App Secret issued from the Breet merchant dashboard. These credentials are passed with each request for authentication. Settlement and Geographic Support Breet supports NGN (Nigerian Naira) and GHS (Ghanaian Cedi) as settlement currencies. Crypto deposits can be received from anywhere on-chain globally. Bank settlements are currently limited to Nigerian and Ghanaian accounts. Compliance Breet operates under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and holds NDPC certification. Business customers must complete KYB before accessing the live API. Breet is a fintech company and not a licensed bank — crypto assets are noted as volatile and Breet does not provide investment advice. Challenges and Gotchas (1) KYB is required before going live — businesses must prepare CAC documents and director IDs. (2) No card payment or USSD support — Breet is crypto-in, fiat-out only. (3) Rate limits are not publicly documented — ask Breet for limits before high-volume integrations. (4) Settlement is to NGN bank accounts only — no USD or international wire settlement currently. (5) Crypto volatility risk exists between deposit and settlement unless using stablecoins (USDT/USDC). Company Background Breet was founded in Nigeria and is headquartered in Lagos. The company started as a consumer crypto trading platform and expanded into B2B crypto payment infrastructure. It is backed by Nigerian and African venture capital and focuses exclusively on the African market, with Nigeria and Ghana as primary supported countries. FAQs Q: Can I accept USDT and settle in NGN automatically? A: Yes. Breet auto-converts USDT (and any supported crypto) to NGN and pushes settlement to your Nigerian bank account. Q: Do I need a crypto licence to use Breet API? A: No. Breet holds the necessary regulatory certifications. You only need to complete KYB as a business customer. Q: Is there a sandbox for testing? A: Yes. Breet offers a live sandbox environment for full integration testing before production. Q: What is the settlement time? A: Typically within minutes for stablecoins. Volatile assets like BTC may have slight delays depending on network confirmations. Q: Can I add my own fee on top of Breet pricing? A: Yes. Breet allows you to apply a 0 to 10% markup on top of their 0.5% base fee, creating a revenue stream from your integration.

CurrencyLayer is one of the most widely-used and long-established exchange rate APIs in the world, providing real-time and historical foreign exchange data for 168 currencies and precious metals. Now owned and operated by APILayer — a platform aggregating developer APIs across multiple categories — CurrencyLayer benefits from enterprise-grade infrastructure, high availability, and a large developer community built up over years of operation. Nigerian Naira (NGN) is fully supported as both a source and target currency. **What CurrencyLayer Does** CurrencyLayer delivers exchange rate data sourced from banks and commercial data providers, providing accurate mid-market rates for 168 world currencies alongside precious metals including gold (XAU), silver (XAG), platinum (XPT), and palladium (XPD). The API supports real-time rate queries, historical rate lookups for any past date, and currency conversion calculations. All responses are delivered in JSON format via simple HTTPS GET requests. **Nigeria Support** NGN (Nigerian Naira) is one of 168 supported currencies. On paid plans (Basic and above), NGN can be used as the base currency — allowing Nigerian apps to fetch NGN-denominated rates for all other currencies in a single call. On the free plan, the base currency is locked to USD (developers can still get NGN rates but must calculate conversions from the USD base). **Authentication** API access requires an API key, which is appended to all request URLs as the access_key query parameter (e.g., ?access_key=YOUR_KEY). API keys are issued immediately upon free signup at currencylayer.com. The service uses HTTPS for all requests to protect key confidentiality. **Pricing Plans** CurrencyLayer offers five tiers: - **Free**: 100 API calls/month, USD base currency only, hourly update frequency - **Basic**: $13.99/month — 10,000 calls/month, all 168 base currencies, conversion endpoint - **Professional**: $52.99/month — 100,000 calls/month, 10-minute rate updates - **Professional Plus**: $84.99/month — 500,000 calls/month, 60-second rate updates - **Enterprise**: Custom pricing for very high volume requirements The critical limitation of the free plan is the USD-only base currency restriction. Nigerian developers who need NGN as a base currency (e.g., to display NGN/USD rather than USD/NGN) must upgrade to at least the Basic plan ($13.99/month). **Update Frequency** Like ExchangeRate-API and other tiered providers, CurrencyLayer's rate freshness scales with plan: - Free and Basic: Updated every 60 minutes - Professional: Updated every 10 minutes - Professional Plus: Updated every 60 seconds For production Nigerian fintech applications requiring near real-time accuracy, the Professional Plus plan's 60-second updates are appropriate. **Historical Data** Historical exchange rate data is available on paid plans, enabling developers to query the exact NGN exchange rate on any specific past date. This is critical for Nigerian businesses that need to record foreign-currency transactions at the exchange rate prevailing on the transaction date — a requirement under IFRS accounting standards used by many Nigerian companies. **Precious Metals** CurrencyLayer is one of the few exchange rate APIs that includes gold and silver prices in its currency list. Gold (XAU) and silver (XAG) prices are returned in the same API response as fiat currencies, making CurrencyLayer useful for Nigerian commodity investment platforms and jewellery businesses that need to track both precious metal values and NGN FX rates. **APILayer Ecosystem** As part of the APILayer product suite, CurrencyLayer users can manage their API key, view usage analytics, and access support through the APILayer dashboard. APILayer also offers complementary APIs (VAT rates, IP geolocation, etc.) that can be purchased and managed in the same account — convenient for developers building multi-feature financial applications. **Important Limitation for Nigeria** CurrencyLayer provides official mid-market exchange rates from banks and data providers. It does not provide Nigerian parallel market (black market) or Bureau de Change rates. In periods of significant Naira volatility or divergence between official and parallel rates, CurrencyLayer rates may not reflect what Nigerian consumers or informal businesses actually transact at. For parallel market tracking, use Monierate. **Comparison with ExchangeRate-API** CurrencyLayer is older and more widely deployed but has a more restrictive free tier (100 calls vs. 1,500 calls on ExchangeRate-API). The Basic plan at $13.99/month is more expensive than ExchangeRate-API Pro at $10/month for comparable features. CurrencyLayer's advantage is the inclusion of precious metals and the APILayer ecosystem. Choose CurrencyLayer if precious metals rates or APILayer ecosystem integration matter; choose ExchangeRate-API for a more generous free tier and lower entry-level paid pricing. **Frequently Asked Questions** Q: Can I use NGN as a base currency on the free plan? A: No. The free plan is locked to USD as the base currency. Upgrade to Basic ($13.99/month) for NGN base currency support. Q: Does CurrencyLayer include gold prices? A: Yes. Gold (XAU), silver (XAG), platinum (XPT), and palladium (XPD) are included in the 168-currency response. Q: How do I authenticate API requests? A: Append your API key as access_key=[YOUR_KEY] in the request URL query string. Q: Is there a sandbox for testing? A: No dedicated sandbox — testing uses the live API with free tier credentials. Q: Who owns CurrencyLayer? A: CurrencyLayer is owned by APILayer, a platform aggregating developer-focused APIs.

Currencyapi.com is a modern, developer-first currency conversion API that provides real-time and historical exchange rate data for over 170 fiat currencies and major cryptocurrencies. Built for developers who need accurate, fast, and reliable FX data with a clean developer experience, Currencyapi.com stands out for combining both traditional fiat currencies (including Nigerian Naira, NGN) and cryptocurrency rates in a single unified API endpoint — a rare feature that reduces the number of integrations needed for multi-asset financial applications. **What Currencyapi.com Does** The API delivers exchange rate data in two primary modes: real-time rates (updated as frequently as every 30 seconds on the highest tier) and historical rates (available on paid plans). All responses are in JSON format. The API is RESTful and authentication uses an API key, which can be passed as a Bearer token in the Authorization header or as a query parameter. A Postman collection and SDKs in multiple programming languages are available to accelerate integration. **Nigeria Support (NGN)** Nigerian Naira (NGN) is fully supported as both a base and target currency. Nigerian developers can fetch the current rate of NGN against any of the 170+ supported currencies, convert NGN amounts to USD or EUR, or pull historical NGN rates for accounting and reporting purposes. **Cryptocurrencies + Fiat in One Call** Unlike most exchange rate APIs that handle only fiat currencies, Currencyapi.com includes major cryptocurrency rates (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other prominent tokens) alongside fiat currencies in the same API response. This makes it particularly useful for Nigerian crypto/fintech hybrid applications that need to display both NGN fiat values and crypto asset values without calling separate APIs. **Pricing Plans** - **Free**: $0/month — 300 requests/month, daily updates, 1 API key, personal use only - **Small**: $9.99/month — 15,000 requests/month, hourly updates, 1 API key, commercial use - **Medium**: $39.99/month — 600,000 requests/month, 60-second updates, 2 API keys, sandbox access - **Large**: $79.99/month — 1.7 million requests/month, 30-second updates, 5 API keys, sandbox access The free tier (300 req/month) is suitable for prototyping and small personal projects. Commercial applications should use at minimum the Small plan ($9.99/month). Production applications needing near real-time rates require the Medium or Large plan. **Sandbox Environment** A dedicated sandbox environment is available on the Medium ($39.99/month) and Large ($79.99/month) plans. This allows developers to test API integrations, simulate responses, and validate error-handling scenarios without consuming live API quota. The sandbox is not available on the Free or Small plans. **Rate Limits & Quotas** Rate limits are enforced per calendar month. Quotas are tracked in API response headers. Once the monthly quota is exhausted, additional requests return an error response until the quota resets at the start of the next month. **Update Frequency** Exchange rate freshness is tied to plan tier: - Free: Updated once per day - Small: Updated every hour - Medium: Updated every 60 seconds - Large: Updated every 30 seconds For production Nigerian fintech applications that need accurate live rates (e.g., payment conversions, live rate displays), the Medium plan's 60-second update cycle is typically sufficient. **Historical Data** Historical exchange rate data is available on paid plans — allowing developers to query the NGN exchange rate on any specific past date. This is essential for accounting applications, audit trail generation, and period-specific financial reporting. **Developer Experience** Currencyapi.com provides a Postman collection for immediate API exploration, SDKs in multiple languages to accelerate integration, and clear documentation at currencyapi.com/docs. The API follows standard REST conventions, making it straightforward to integrate into any backend stack. **Important Limitation** Like most global exchange rate APIs, Currencyapi.com provides official mid-market exchange rates, not Nigerian parallel market (black market) or Bureau de Change rates. For Nigerian parallel market rates, use a Nigeria-specific source like Monierate. The official rates may diverge significantly from street rates during periods of high Naira volatility. **Frequently Asked Questions** Q: Can I use Currencyapi.com for free in production? A: The free plan allows 300 requests/month for personal use only. For commercial production use, the Small plan ($9.99/month) with 15,000 requests is the minimum. Q: Does Currencyapi.com support NGN? A: Yes. NGN is one of 170+ supported currencies. Q: Does it include cryptocurrency prices? A: Yes. Major cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, and others) are included alongside fiat currencies in the same API endpoint. Q: Is there a sandbox for testing? A: Yes, but only on Medium ($39.99/month) and Large ($79.99/month) plans. Free and Small plan users test against the live API. Q: Does it provide Nigerian black market rates? A: No. Only official mid-market rates. Use Monierate for Nigerian parallel market data.

Alpha Vantage is a comprehensive financial data API covering US stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, forex exchange rates, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and economic indicators — all accessible through a single, consistent REST API with a generous free tier. The platform is particularly notable for its extensive library of over 50 pre-calculated technical indicators (RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, EMA, SMA, and many more), which are available as first-class API endpoints rather than requiring developers to compute them from raw price data. For financial application developers and quantitative analysts, Alpha Vantage provides a rich data foundation that spans traditional finance and crypto in a single integration. Nigerian developers should be aware of an important context distinction: Alpha Vantage's API key and data endpoints are accessible from Nigeria without geographic restrictions, and the forex and cryptocurrency data are fully usable for Nigerian applications. However, Alpha Vantage is primarily oriented toward US stock market data — NYSE and NASDAQ-listed companies, US ETFs, and US economic indicators. Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX) listed stocks are not covered. The ng_support=false designation reflects that the primary use case (US equities) does not serve Nigerian users, not that the API itself is blocked. Nigerian developers building forex tools, crypto analytics, and global market data applications can use Alpha Vantage productively. The Forex (FX) module provides exchange rate data for 180+ currency pairs including USD/NGN, EUR/NGN, GBP/NGN, and all major cross-currency combinations. The FX_DAILY endpoint returns daily OHLCV (open, high, low, close, volume) data going back 20+ years for any forex pair — enabling Nigerian developers to build long-term trend charts showing the USD/NGN rate history. FX_INTRADAY provides intraday data at 1-minute, 5-minute, 15-minute, 30-minute, and 60-minute intervals, enabling high-frequency forex rate displays for Nigerian trading platforms. The Cryptocurrency module covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, and hundreds of altcoins with DIGITAL_CURRENCY_DAILY, DIGITAL_CURRENCY_WEEKLY, and DIGITAL_CURRENCY_MONTHLY endpoints. Each crypto data point includes both the USD value and the value in a specified market currency — Nigerian developers can request BTC/USD data with NGN conversion included in every response, enabling portfolio tracking applications that display crypto values directly in naira. Technical Indicators are Alpha Vantage's most distinctive feature. Rather than fetching raw OHLCV data and computing indicators client-side, Nigerian developers can call endpoints like GET /query?function=RSI&symbol=BTC&interval=daily to receive pre-calculated RSI values going back years. The 50+ available indicators cover trend-following (EMA, SMA, WMA, DEMA, TEMA), momentum (RSI, MACD, STOCH, CCI, MOM, ROC), volatility (BBANDS, ATR), and volume indicators. For Nigerian quantitative developers building algorithmic trading systems or analysis tools, this eliminates significant computational overhead. The Economic Indicators module covers US macroeconomic data: Federal Reserve interest rates, CPI inflation, unemployment, GDP, and treasury yields. While these are US-focused metrics, they are globally relevant — Nigerian investors and analysts closely track US Fed rate decisions because they directly affect global capital flows, dollar strength, and by extension NGN/USD exchange rates. The News & Sentiment endpoint returns financial news articles with AI-generated sentiment scores for specific stocks, sectors, or forex pairs. Nigerian financial analysts building market research tools can use this endpoint to track sentiment around USD/NGN, US equities held by Nigerian investors, or cryptocurrency markets. The free tier provides 25 requests per day and 500 per month — sufficient for learning the API and building prototypes. Premium plans starting at $50/month (75 requests per minute) support production applications. No credit card is required for the free tier, making it accessible to Nigerian developers exploring the platform without financial commitment.