Crypto Exchange API Latency: Measured, Not Guessed
We hit each exchange's public market-data API with a persistent connection and time the round trips. Lower is better for bots, market-making, and anything latency-sensitive.
Last measured 2026-07-06 23:53 UTC · refreshed every 6 hours · measured from a shared cloud runner (GitHub Actions, US) ·50 samples/venue · raw JSON
Verdict: Bitstamp: lowest median latency (3.35 ms)
In this run, Bitstamp had the fastest median response at3.35 ms, while Kraken was slowest (17.11 ms median, 21.31 ms at p95). Tail latency (p95/p99) matters more than the median for bots. A slow 5% is where slippage hides.
| Exchange | Connect | p50 | p95 | p99 | Mean | Samples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitstampfastest | 183.467 ms | 3.35 ms | 95.12 ms | 100.92 ms | 15.24 ms | 50/50 |
| Coinbase | 19.809 ms | 9.76 ms | 13.3 ms | 23.24 ms | 10.43 ms | 50/50 |
| Gemini | 70.641 ms | 14.62 ms | 34.08 ms | 545.41 ms | 36.33 ms | 50/50 |
| Kraken | 18.335 ms | 17.11 ms | 21.31 ms | 35.62 ms | 17.56 ms | 50/50 |
How to read this
Connect is the one-time DNS + TCP + TLS handshake cost; a running bot pays it once and then reuses the connection. p50 is the typical request.p95 / p99 are the slow tail, the requests that actually cost you during volatile markets. A venue with a great median but an ugly p99 will still burn you.
A note on "measured from a shared cloud runner": these runs execute on GitHub's hosted infrastructure, not a fixed geographic location we control, so read them as a fair relative comparison between exchanges rather than the exact latency you'll personally see. Your own numbers depend on where your bot runs, which is exactly why colocation and VPS choice matter. A fixed-location VPS benchmark, measuring from a stable region, is on our roadmap (coming soon).
Trading on these exchanges
Latency is one input. Fees, available pairs, API rate limits, and US eligibility matter too, and we break those down per venue in our exchange comparisons. If you're building or running a bot, pairing a low-latency exchange with a nearby VPS is the single biggest controllable win.
Common questions
Which crypto exchange has the fastest API?
In our most recent run (2026-07-06, measured from a shared cloud runner (GitHub Actions, US)), Bitstamp had the lowest median REST latency at 3.35 ms, while Kraken was slowest at 17.11 ms. Rankings shift between runs, so the live table above is always the current source of truth.
What do p50, p95, and p99 latency mean?
p50 is the median (typical) request. p95 and p99 are the slow tail: the slowest 5% and 1% of requests. For trading bots the tail matters more than the median, because those slow requests are where slippage hides during volatile markets.
How is this measured, and can I reproduce it?
We open one persistent keep-alive HTTPS connection per exchange, warm it up, then time back-to-back GET requests to each public market-data endpoint. The TLS handshake is timed once and reported separately as connect time. The benchmark script is public and the raw JSON is downloadable, so you can re-run it yourself.