Api3 is a decentralized oracle network that delivers transparent, on-chain price data across more than 40 EVM chains. Built on first-party oracle nodes with integrated Oracle Extractable Value (OEV) infrastructure, it allows dApps to access secure, verifiable data while earning value from oracle usage. 

Api3 currently integrates CoinGecko’s API as a core data source within its decentralized price aggregation model—powering both OEV-enabled and general price feeds (dAPIs). By incorporating CoinGecko’s data into the oracle network, Api3 enables smart contracts to access direct-from-source, accurate, and real-time market prices on-chain.

Key Metrics at a Glance 

• 200+ price feeds live across 40+ EVM chains
  Api3 provides broad on-chain coverage, powered by the CoinGecko API, through its decentralised oracle infrastructure, enabling dApps to securely access real-time market data across major networks.

• $284,000+ in OEV rewards redistributed to protocols
  CoinGecko API's market data is a critical component in Api3's decentralized APIs, enabling secure, reliable price feeds for smart contract automation and dApps. Through this integration, Api3’s OEV-enabled feeds helped dApps monetize OEV, transforming data consumption into a revenue stream. 

• 41 dApps actively use Api3 feeds, with 12 receiving OEV payouts
  Adoption of Api3’s dAPIs continues to grow as developers prioritise verifiability, uptime, and economic alignment in their data sources.

• 99.99% uptime and over 25,000 transactions processed on the OEV Network
  Api3’s infrastructure is engineered for reliability at scale, ensuring price data and OEV settlements are delivered seamlessly across DeFi protocols.

The Challenge

In today’s DeFi landscape, most oracle networks depend on legacy oracle systems that use a third-party node operator design to fetch, aggregate, and relay data on-chain. While these systems have enabled DeFi’s growth, they introduce challenges and overlook hidden value leakage. Challenges present with legacy oracle designs:

• Indirect Data Access: dApps typically rely on off-chain data being passed through multiple intermediaries before reaching the blockchain. This creates complexity and makes it harder to verify the data's origin and integrity.

• Opaque Trust Models: Data is often signed and relayed by entities with no direct relationship to the original data provider. This makes it difficult for protocols to audit or prove that the data originated from a trusted source.

• MEV Leakage, a Hidden Tax: When oracles trigger critical functions like liquidations, rebalances, or price updates, MEV bots and searchers often extract value by front-running or back-running these transactions. The protocol and its users see none of this—it's a silent drain on protocol value, with legacy oracles unable to stop this inefficiency from taking place. MEV (Miner Extractable Value) is a characteristic of by-design inefficiencies in a blockchain’s operation.

Api3 flips this model in its purpose-led design: OEV-aware oracles.

• First-party Oracles: Api3 delivers data directly from source providers (e.g., CoinGecko, and other reputable crypto-price aggregator APIs), eliminating reliance on middlemen and enhancing transparency, traceability, and trust.

• OEV-Ready Architecture: As the creators of OEV, Api3 enables protocols to reclaim MEV generated from oracle-driven events. Rather than leak value to third parties, dApps can monetize the oracle layer—aligning oracle usage with protocol economics.

Api3 transforms oracles from passive infrastructure into active value-aligned components. Data becomes verifiable, value becomes recapturable, and protocols no longer have to subsidize external actors to access critical on-chain information.

Api3’s Solution: Redefining Oracles as Performance Infrastructure

Api3 was built to address these structural flaws. By replacing third-party relayers with first-party data providers running their own oracles, Api3 eliminates unnecessary intermediaries and strengthens data verifiability. Its native OEV (Oracle Extractable Value) Network enables dApps to reclaim MEV and convert it into protocol-owned revenue. This repositions oracle infrastructure from a passive data layer into an active source of economic value, redefining oracles as performance infrastructure, and not just middleware.

How OEV Works in Practice

OEV is the value unlocked by oracle updates, like those enabling liquidations, which has traditionally been captured by third parties. Api3’s OEV Network flips this dynamic by auctioning early access to data, sending the value back to the originating protocol instead.

Latent value that is captured from Api3's OEV system can be recycled, and be put to use on a “Flywheel Principle”, re-injected and creating further, sustainable value for DeFi protocols: 

The OEV Flywheel shows how captured value continuously improves protocol economics, through reinvestment in user incentives and liquidity growth.

This model has real-world applications across various DeFi protocols. Take Morpho Markets as an example:

In traditional oracle systems, when liquidation events occur, most of the extractable value flows to external MEV searchers. Conversely, Api3's OEV system redirects this value back to the protocol, creating a new revenue stream while maintaining fair compensation for other network participants.

Why Api3 Chose CoinGecko API

Api3 integrated the CoinGecko API as a core data source due to its outstanding reputation for accuracy, technical reliability, and consistent uptime. CoinGecko’s responsiveness in listing new assets is vital for ensuring comprehensive dApp coverage across chains.

Equally important is in the shared philosophy where CoinGecko aligns with Api3’s commitment to transparency and direct-from-source data. This makes it a natural fit for powering both general and OEV-enabled data feeds within Api3’s decentralised oracle network.

Integrating the CoinGecko API

Api3 integrated CoinGecko API as a core data provider within its decentralized price feed system. 

Using the Oracle Integration Specifications (OIS) format and Airnode framework, CoinGecko API’s /simple/price endpoint is mapped into Api3’s infrastructure to deliver live, on-chain asset prices. This real-time pricing data is then aggregated with other sources in Api3’s dynamic dAPI model. 

Each provider’s contribution is weighted based on performance, allowing Api3 to maintain consistency, redundancy, and high data integrity. This adaptive system helps prevent manipulation and ensures that smart contracts receive trustworthy data at all times.

The display highlights CoinGecko API’s first-party source status, timestamped data, and verified airnode, ensuring tamper-resistant delivery for smart contracts.

CoinGecko’s reliable, real-time market data played a key role in reducing inconsistencies across feeds. Its uptime, comprehensive asset listings, and responsive support made it a high-performing source within Api3’s aggregation model. As a result, Api3 was able to deliver more consistent and verifiable pricing to DeFi applications.

Capturing Value with Modular Oracles & Quality Crypto Data

Api3’s integration of the CoinGecko API showcased how modular architecture and strategic alignment can accelerate development while improving data quality.

The impact of this integration can also be seen in real-world use cases. Yei Finance is a high-performance money market protocol deployed on the Sei blockchain, offering lending, borrowing, and leveraged staking functionalities. By integrating Api3’s OEV-enabled price feeds, Yei ensures that critical actions such as liquidations and leveraged position management rely on accurate, verifiable, on-chain price data.

Unlike traditional oracle systems that passively relay prices, Api3’s system allows Yei to recapture Oracle Extractable Value (OEV) from data-driven events. When an opportunity like a liquidation arises due to a price movement, early access to that update is auctioned, and the proceeds are redistributed directly to Yei, not external MEV actors.

As of June 2025, Yei Finance has generated over $80,000 in OEV revenue, converting its oracle usage into a meaningful revenue stream — all without requiring changes to its core protocol logic or user interface.

Api3 uses the /coins/markets endpoint to ingest CoinGecko API's data into aggregated, on-chain price feeds—delivering it directly to dApps like Yei Finance. 

This integration illustrates how first-party oracle infrastructure, combined with OEV mechanics, can transform price data from a cost into an asset, empowering protocols like Yei to build more sustainable and aligned DeFi systems. CoinGecko API’s inclusion in this system reflects a shared focus on accuracy, transparency, and direct data access.

Looking Ahead

Api3 is focused on scaling the adoption of its oracle infrastructure across more dApps, enabling a broader set of protocols to benefit from verifiable data and OEV rewards. With over $284,000 already redistributed to integrated protocols, Api3 aims to surpass $1 million in OEV revenue by the end of 2025, turning data access into a meaningful revenue stream for more of DeFi.

To support this growth, Api3 is expanding its network of OEV-enabled feeds across dozens of EVM chains. The CoinGecko API continues to be a key data source, providing the real-time, accurate market data required for reliable smart contract execution.

As more protocols demand transparent, tamper-resistant, and economically aligned oracles, Api3’s architecture is well-positioned to meet that need. By removing intermediaries and aligning incentives, Api3 empowers dApps to not only access better data but also capture more value from it.

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This article is written in collaboration with Api3.