Ah, cryptocurrencies! Your volatility has been described as a changeable and dramatic as a weather system — and now here’s an easy way to experience this adventure in the future of money in realtime!

Grab one of our 16×2 LCD displays, Pi Cobbler, an Adafruit Pi Python code library, and check out this Weekend Project from MAKE, and you’ll be all set for Keeping Up with the Bitcoin-Litecoin-Dogecoin Cryptocurrency Exchange Rate Weather with a RasPi Crypto Currency Tracker:

The Crypto Currency Tracker monitors the value of three different digital currencies — Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin — and compares them each against the United States dollar.

The hardware consists of a Raspberry Pi, a 16×2 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), an SD card, Ethernet cabling, and a USB micro cable with wall wart for power. The tracker’s software is built on Raspbian Linux and uses existing Python libraries to control a Hitachi LCD controller combined with our tracker’s Python scripts, which make JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) requests for each respective digital currency market index.

Not only does the code pull digital currency values from the internet, but it also stores the old value in a variable called,

self.last_price

Retention of the last value is done to display it on the lower line of the 16×2 LCD; the top line is the current value.

The image below shows Bitcoin, or BTC, with a USD current value of 587.46 and a previous value of 587.22….

Read more about crypto currencies and the steps to create the project back at MAKE.

Each Friday is PiDay here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts, tutorials and new Raspberry Pi related products. Adafruit has the largest and best selection of Raspberry Pi accessories and all the code & tutorials to get you up and running in no time!

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