Before you begin:
  • HRQ is only available for Paxos Crypto Brokerage Partners and must be enabled before you can use the API endpoints. If you are a Paxos Crypto Brokerage Partner, you may reach out to Support for assistance enabling HRQ. If you are an Individual or Institutional User of dashboard.paxos.com, please refer to the v2 Orders service for API trading.
  • Make sure you can successfully authenticate with the exchange:read_quote, exchange:read_quote_execution, and exchange:write_quote_execution scopes.
  • Ensure you have a profile set up in Sandbox for trading. You can use the Sandbox Deposits
endpoint to add fiat to your profile if you have not already.
  • Please read the Orders & Quotes FAQ to ensure you understand the difference between quotes and orders.
  • You may wish to review our document on Choosing a Ledgering Strategy. This guide is written assuming a Fiat and Crypto Omnibus strategy.

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Overview

In this quickstart guide you will learn how to submit a quote using Paxos’s Held Rate Quote (HRQ) Service. In order to purchase or sell cryptocurrency using HRQ, you must:
  1. Call List Quotes to get the latest available quoted prices for the assets you want to buy or sell and record the associated Quote ID.
  2. Present the offered price to one or more end-users with a timer indicating the time to expiration.
  3. If a user accepts the price, create a Quote Execution with the amount to buy or sell and the Quote ID from step 1.
  4. Call Get Quote Execution to monitor for completion and know when the funds from the execution have settled.

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Step 1: Retrieve a Quote using List Quotes

The first step is to find the latest quote for the asset you wish to trade. The List Quotes service will return a quote for the chosen asset that will be guaranteed for 30 seconds. Note the quote_id. It will be needed to create a Quote Execution in Step 3 below.
If Paxos is collecting a transaction fee in real time, the fee will be included in the quote automatically.

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Code Samples

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Step 1.1: Authenticate to the Paxos API.

curl https://oauth.sandbox.paxos.com/oauth2/token \
-F grant_type=client_credentials \
-F client_id=$PAXOS_CLIENT_ID \
-F client_secret=$PAXOS_SECRET \
-F scope="funding:read_profile exchange:read_quote exchange:write_quote_execution exchange:read_quote_execution")
Response: 
{
  "access_token":"gVLMQTvPZsm5CbfXAie9iHwkEj3DbPNdey42fBqjH-8.ggsIWmTU0H3Y427zdeoZ2xN_G_3MtZYx-ItdiQRkSC0",
  "expires_in":3599,
  "scope":"funding:read_profile exchange:read_quote exchange:write_quote_execution exchange:read_quote_execution",
  "token_type":"bearer"
}

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Step 1.2: List quotes for BTC and ETH.

curl --location "https://api.sandbox.paxos.com/v2/quotes?markets=BTCUSD&markets=ETHUSD" \
--header "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN"
Response 
{
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "3750f18f-ff13-4cc9-a37f-b1f097dad201",
      "market": "BTCUSD",
      "side": "BUY",
      "price": "30394.14",
      "base_asset": "BTC",
      "quote_asset": "USD",
      "created_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:29Z",
      "expires_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:59Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "b118f0cb-181a-4da9-875b-c89a6e4532a4",
      "market": "BTCUSD",
      "side": "SELL",
      "price": "30314.07",
      "base_asset": "BTC",
      "quote_asset": "USD",
      "created_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:29Z",
      "expires_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:59Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "2e6a3b27-acd4-4c33-ac6e-fb56a819121b",
      "market": "ETHUSD",
      "side": "BUY",
      "price": "1874.08",
      "base_asset": "ETH",
      "quote_asset": "USD",
      "created_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:29Z",
      "expires_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:59Z"
    },
    {
      "id": "f7dea421-faad-4164-85e0-2a584901d368",
      "market": "ETHUSD",
      "side": "SELL",
      "price": "1868.67",
      "base_asset": "ETH",
      "quote_asset": "USD",
      "created_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:29Z",
      "expires_at": "2023-07-13T00:50:59Z"
    }
  ]
}

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Step 2: Present the quote to end users and await confirmation

Once quotes are retrieved, the price and expiration time can be presented to end users. Paxos recommends creating a two-step process and allowing users to verify that they intend to purchase or sell the specified amount at the specified price before executing the quote. The UI component is omitted here, and we will proceed assuming confirmation was received from the end user.
There is no limitation on the number of times a single quote can be executed. In production, quotes can and should be cached to be presented to multiple users rather than calling List Quotes for each user.Crypto Brokerage Partners should use multiplexing and call List Quotes via an application rather than sending a List Quotes request every time a user wants to buy or sell an asset.

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Step 3: Following confirmation, create a quote execution

The Create Quote Execution endpoint is used to execute on a quote for buying or selling an asset. In the Quote Execution request, the Partner must set the amount of fiat or crypto to buy or sell based on the user’s input. This must be specified by EITHER:
  • base_amount to specify the amount of crypto to buy or sell, OR
  • quote_amount to specify the amount of fiat to spend or acquire.
The request will respond with a Quote Execution ID - this will need to be recorded to retrieve the quote execution in the final step.
  • In a live integration:
    • You should validate that the user has enough assets available to complete the transaction prior to creating a quote execution. This step has been omitted for simplicity.
    • In a live integration, there may be additional required fields depending on your chosen Ledgering Strategy. See Required Fields: for more information.
  • The default maximum size limit of a single Quote Execution is $50K USD. Larger quotes would require multiple executions.

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Code Samples

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Step 3.1: Submitting the Quote.

Using the ID for the BTC buy Quote from step 1.2 and your omnibus profile_id. 
curl --location 'https://api.sandbox.paxos.com/v2/profiles/fd3a58a4-f4a5-4919-97aa-777e82a2c0f7/quote-executions' \
--request 'POST' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN' \
--data '{
  "quote_id": "9a2e47b8-5fb0-4e5c-887a-f5c752581b35",
  "quote_amount": "25"
}'
Response: 
{
  "id": "9a204d7e-2f0d-4122-8da4-b91da9580e6e",
  "profile_id": "fd3a58a4-f4a5-4919-97aa-777e82a2c0f7",
  "quote_id": "9a2e47b8-5fb0-4e5c-887a-f5c752581b35",
  "status": "CREATED",
  "market": "BTCUSD",
  "side": "BUY",
  "price": "30358.31",
  "base_amount": "0.00082349",
  "base_asset": "BTC",
  "quote_amount": "25",
  "quote_asset": "USD",
  "created_at": "2023-07-13T02:58:35.756255Z",
  "identity_id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
  "account_id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
}

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Step 4: Validate execution and settlement

The final step is to confirm that the quote execution completed and settled successfully using the Get Quote Execution and List Quote Executions endpoints. Quote executions typically complete in under 100ms. After creation, all quotes should be in the CREATED or SETTLED status. CREATED indicates that the Quote Execution has been submitted successfully, but has not yet settled. When an order is in CREATED status, the purchasing asset (i.e. fiat for buy orders) will be debited from the profile_id. The acquiring asset (i.e. crypto for sell orders) will be credited when the order is SETTLED. Created quote can’t be canceled, Paxos guarantees settlement once a quote has been created! SETTLED indicates that the venue executing the quote has confirmed completion of the trade. At this point, balances in Paxos have been credited and debited and Partners can update their own ledgers to reflect a successful trade.
Paxos recommends that all Crypto Brokerage Partners:
  • build a pending order settlement workflow for edge cases where the order does not settle immediately. This is especially important for customers using the Fiat Omnibus and Crypto Subledgered Ledgering Strategy. Subledgered End Users will be unable to sell or transfer purchased Cryptocurrencies until the quote execution has SETTLED.
  • cache profile balances. Balances should be updated once there has been a change to the profile balance (i.e. after a trade).

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Code Samples

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Checking the status of the submitted quote execution

Specify the same profile_id and the id of the quote execution in the url: 
curl --location 'https://api.sandbox.paxos.com/v2/profiles/fd3a58a4-f4a5-4919-97aa-777e82a2c0f7/quote-executions/9a204d7e-2f0d-4122-8da4-b91da9580e6e' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN'
Response: 
{
    "id": "9a204d7e-2f0d-4122-8da4-b91da9580e6e",
    "profile_id": "fd3a58a4-f4a5-4919-97aa-777e82a2c0f7",
    "quote_id": "9a2e47b8-5fb0-4e5c-887a-f5c752581b35",
    "status": "SETTLED",
    "market": "BTCUSD",
    "side": "BUY",
    "price": "30358.31",
    "base_amount": "0.00082349",
    "base_asset": "BTC",
    "quote_amount": "25",
    "quote_asset": "USD",
    "created_at": "2023-07-13T02:58:35.756255Z",
    "settled_at": "2023-07-13T02:58:36.209369Z",
    "identity_id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
    "account_id": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000"
}