AlphaVantage API call returns error "Invalid API call"

user_3810188 0
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I was playing with the alphavantage API and was successfully able to receive the response for BTC to USD exchange rate.

{
            'Realtime Currency Exchange Rate': {
                '1. From_Currency Code': 'BTC',
                '2. From_Currency Name': 'Bitcoin',
                '3. To_Currency Code': 'USD',
                '4. To_Currency Name': 'United States Dollar',
                '5. Exchange Rate': '35172.07000000',
                '6. Last Refreshed': '2022-01-22 16:39:01',
                '7. Time Zone': 'UTC',
                '8. Bid Price': '35172.06000000',
                '9. Ask Price': '35172.07000000'
            }
        }

However, when I swap the currency, I mean convert USD to BTC, I get Invalid API call.

Below is what I'm trying to do

url = https://www.alphavantage.co/query?function=CURRENCY_EXCHANGE_RATE&from_currency=USD&to_currency=BTC&apikey=my_api_key`

r = requests.get(url)

{'Error Message': 'Invalid API call. Please retry or visit the documentation (https://www.alphavantage.co/documentation/) for CURRENCY_EXCHANGE_RATE.'}

I visited the document multiple times to confirm if I'm missing anything else but no luck. As per my understanding, the API call structure is exactly the same (including parameters) for either way of currency. So I'm really lost here and really don't have any idea what is wrong here. Any help would be appreciated.

alpha-vantage python-requests python
1 Answers

It is a bug in their API but there is an easy workaround - simply reverse the currencies to get the exchange rate and calculate the reverse exchange rate. here is how I did it

if curr1 in physical_currency_list and curr2 in digital_currency_list:
            temp = curr1
            curr1 = curr2
            curr2 = temp
            bug = True
            
# get rate via requests

if bug == True:

            new_amount =  (1/float(rate)) *float(amount)   #reverse exchange rate

user_180507810
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