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 (UTC) · region: local-dev · 8 samples/venue · method: keep-alive HTTPS GET, TLS handshake excluded (see connect_ms)
Verdict: Bitstamp: lowest median latency (23.23 ms)
In this run, Bitstamp had the fastest median response at23.23 ms, while Gemini was slowest (79.43 ms median, 197.71 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 | 73.896 ms | 23.23 ms | 37.32 ms | 40.41 ms | 25.97 ms | 8/8 |
| Kraken | 60.184 ms | 55.33 ms | 143.33 ms | 180.05 ms | 69.14 ms | 8/8 |
| Coinbase | 60.641 ms | 62.6 ms | 72.04 ms | 73.75 ms | 56.46 ms | 8/8 |
| Gemini | 230.465 ms | 79.43 ms | 197.71 ms | 218.78 ms | 106.26 ms | 8/8 |
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.
These are public-endpoint reads from a single region on the date shown. Your own latency depends on where your bot runs, which is exactly why colocation and VPS choice matter. We test that separately in our VPS latency matrix (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.