Incorrect Timestamps When Requesting Kline Data from Binance

When exploring ways to integrate historical market data into your applications, it is important to ensure that the API responses are properly formatted and contain the expected information. In this article, we will look at a common issue when requesting kline (hourly candlestick chart) data from Binance and discuss possible solutions.

Issue: Incorrect Timestamps in Kline Data Response

When you make a request to the Binance API for kline data, you will receive a response containing historical price data with timestamps. However, these timestamps are not always accurate or consistent. In some cases, the timestamp may be incorrect due to a number of factors, such as network congestion, API speed limits, or internal data processing issues.

Issue: Incorrect timestamps in requested Kline data

Let’s say you use the “query library” to make a GET request to the Binance API to get the kline information. You will receive a response like this:

{
"lines": [
[1234567890, 1000, 50.2345, -15.6789, 30.5678, ...],
...
]
}

Here is a snippet of the expected output:

| Date | Open | High | Low | Volume |

| — | — | — | — | — |

| 01/01/2022 at 00:00:00 | 1,000,000 | 1010,000 | 990,000 | 5000.000 |

However, upon closer inspection, you will notice that the timestamp “1234567890” is incorrect.

Why are timestamps not accurate?

There are several reasons that can contribute to this issue:

• Network Congestion: High network traffic can cause delayed responses or incorrect information.

• API Rate Limits

  : Exceeding API usage limits can cause timestamp discrepancies.

• Internal Data Processing Issues: Errors in the Binance system can cause timestamp inaccuracies.

Solutions:

To resolve this issue, consider the following strategies:

1. Use a timeout to account for network congestion

When making requests to the Binance API, you can allow a small delay (e.g. 10-20ms) between each request and the previous one. This helps reduce network congestion and reduces the risk of incorrect timestamps.

import time
def make_request(url):

Enable a small timeout to account for network congestion
time.sleep(0.01)
return requests.get(url).json()

2. Optimize API rate limits

If you are making many requests per second, consider increasing the API usage limit or implementing rate limiting strategies such as token-based authentication.

3. Check the Binance API documentation for timestamp accuracy

Please review the Binance API documentation carefully to understand what types of data are expected and any exceptions. This will help you better anticipate and prepare for timestamp issues.

import datetime
define get_kline_data(url):
response = requests.get(url)
json_data = response.json()

Parse klines data with an exact timestamp format (e.g. "2022-01-01T00:00:00Z")
json_data['klines'] for kline:
date = datetime.datetime.strptime(kline[0], '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
print(date)

By implementing these strategies, you can ensure that your requests to the Binance API receive accurate and consistent timestamp information. This allows you to build more reliable applications that efficiently integrate historical market data.

Conclusion

Incorrect timestamps in kline data responses are a common issue when working with the Binance API. By implementing timeouts to account for network congestion, optimizing API rate limits, or checking the documentation for expected data formats, you can improve your chances of getting accurate timestamp data.

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