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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.

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Base URL

The CDP API has two environments, each with its own base URL: 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.

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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.
Treat resource IDs as opaque strings. The prefix is informational; do not parse the UUID portion to derive meaning.

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Amounts

All monetary amounts are represented as strings of decimal numbers to preserve precision.
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

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Asset symbols

Assets are identified by lowercase symbols.

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Timestamps

All datetime fields are returned in UTC using ISO 8601 with a Z suffix.
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