How not to get banned by an exchange and turn monitoring into a pumpkin
In CryptoScope, we built an aggregator that routes requests based on data importance, enables exponential backoff as it approaches limits, and keeps a cache of the last known state when an exchange is unavailable.
In CryptoScope, we were dealing with a classic 2025 problem: the data needs to be as fresh as memes on X, while the exchange API is basically saying, “take it easy.” Every exchange has its own rate limits, so we built an aggregator that distributes requests in proportion to data importance — critical data gets updated more often, secondary data doesn’t get spammed.
When we get close to the limit, we switch on exponential backoff: instead of hammering on a closed door, we back off the request rate in a controlled way. That helps both availability and the on-call engineer’s sanity.
If an exchange is temporarily unavailable, the service doesn’t pretend the world has ended. We keep a cache of the last known state and use it for graceful degradation: the user sees the last valid data, not an empty screen and a lot of drama.
In practice, we’re balancing freshness and availability — the same trade-off as “update it right now” versus “avoid getting a 429 in the face.”