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The CDP API follows consistent formatting rules for resource IDs, monetary amounts, asset symbols, and timestamps. This page is a quick reference for the patterns you’ll encounter on every endpoint. For pagination, authentication, errors, idempotency, and rate limits, see the dedicated pages linked at the bottom.

Base URL

The CDP API has two environments, each with its own base URL:
EnvironmentBase URL
Productionhttps://api.cdp.coinbase.com/platform
Sandboxhttps://sandbox.cdp.coinbase.com/platform
Endpoints are versioned under /v2/.... For example: https://api.cdp.coinbase.com/platform/v2/accounts. Sandbox is a fully isolated environment for testing — it does not connect to any blockchain network or move real funds. API keys and resource IDs are environment-scoped and cannot be used across environments. See the Sandbox guide for setup details.

Resource IDs

Many Payments resources use a prefixed identifier of the form {prefix}_{uuid}. The prefix makes IDs self-describing in logs, error messages, and webhook payloads.
ResourcePrefixExample
Accountaccount_account_af2937b0-9846-4fe7-bfe9-ccc22d935114
Transfertransfer_transfer_af2937b0-9846-4fe7-bfe9-ccc22d935114
Deposit destinationdepositDestination_depositDestination_af2937b0-9846-4fe7-bfe9-ccc22d935114
Payment methodpaymentMethod_paymentMethod_af2937b0-9846-4fe7-bfe9-ccc22d935114
Customercustomer_customer_af2937b0-9846-4fe7-bfe9-ccc22d935114
Treat resource IDs as opaque strings. The prefix is informational; do not parse the UUID portion to derive meaning.

Amounts

All monetary amounts are represented as strings of decimal numbers to preserve precision.
{
  "amount": "100.00",
  "asset": "usd"
}
Never use floating-point numbers for amounts. JSON floats lose precision for many decimal values (for example, 0.1 + 0.2 !== 0.3), which can lead to off-by-one-cent errors at scale.
Examples
ValueMeaning
"100.00"100 USD
"2.5"2.5 BTC
"103.50"103.50 USD
"0.000001"1 micro-unit

Asset symbols

Assets are identified by lowercase symbols.
CategorySymbols
Fiatusd
Stablecoinsusdc, usdt, eurc, pyusd
For the full list of supported assets and networks, see Supported networks.

Timestamps

All datetime fields are returned in UTC using ISO 8601 with a Z suffix.
YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ
Example: 2023-10-08T14:30:00Z

Authentication

JWT signing and API key formats

Pagination

Cursor-based pagination for list endpoints

Errors

Error response shape and full error catalog

Idempotency

Safely retry write requests with idempotency keys

Rate limits

Per-window limits and best practices