The “Winklevii” have been in the news for their just-launched WinkDex app that claims it “provides the most accurate price of bitcoin in real-time.” The iOS-only iPhone 5-optimized software (there is an unofficial widget for Android too) is admittedly robust, with day, week, month, multi-month, and yearly indexing. The charts go pretty deep, and the real-time watching of the index is very accurate.
That said, if you can’t open it, you don’t own it — and this applies to software as much as hardware these days. The Crypto Currency Tracker video (above) is admittedly goofy, but the principle is there: Build your own digital currency tracker.
Make: Technical Editor David Scheltema, who worked on the original project, says with the LCD screen pins soldered in place and a ready-to-go Raspberry Pi, placing the jumper wires and cobbler “won’t take more than 20 minutes or so.”
This project isn’t solely limited to Bitcoin, either. It’s also readymade for Dogecoin and Litecoin, and could easily be modified for other currencies or trackers. Heck, you could even modify it to scrape data from WinkDex! (It currently uses CoinDesk and Blockchain.) Furthermore, with the power of the Pi you could extend the project to conduct physical notifications or send text alerts over various networks when the prices climb above, or drop below, a certain threshold.
As always, if you build this project as-is, or modify it to suit your needs (be they software or hardware!), be sure to send us an email with pictures and a story about your build.
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