# A free, no-key MCP server for crypto news and market data (Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT)

> Source: <https://dev.to/basisdesk/a-free-no-key-mcp-server-for-crypto-news-and-market-data-claude-cursor-chatgpt-28kb>
> Published: 2026-09-30 09:10:11+00:00

*Written with AI assistance by the Basis Desk team.*

If you build agents that touch crypto, you have probably hit the same wall we did: models are confident about prices and events they cannot see, and scraping news sites is fragile. So we exposed our newsroom as a **remote MCP server** — free, read-only, no API key.

**Endpoint:** `https://basisdesk.news/mcp` (Streamable HTTP). It is also listed in the official MCP Registry as `news.basisdesk/mcp`.

| Tool | Use it for | 
|---|---|
| `search_news` | "What happened with X?" — full-text search over stories that are checked against primary sources (SEC/CFTC filings, court records, company and protocol releases) | 
| `latest_news` | Newest stories, filterable by category (bitcoin, ethereum, defi, regulation, institutions, security…) | 
| `get_article` | One story as Markdown with key points and numbered source links — for citations | 
| `market_snapshot` | Prices refreshed every minute, 1h/24h/7d change, market cap, dominance, Fear & Greed, ETH gas, BTC fees | 
| `whale_transfers` | Large ETH/stablecoin (≥ $5M) and BTC (≥ 100 BTC) transfers from our own chain scanner, with exchange labels | 
| `token_safety` | Contract risk signals (honeypot, taxes, mint/pause/blacklist powers, proxies) from GoPlus Security | 
| `daily_brief` | The day's 5–7 stories that mattered, for "crypto news today" prompts | 

All tools are annotated `readOnlyHint: true`; nothing writes anywhere.

**Claude (connectors), ChatGPT developer mode, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf** — add a custom/remote MCP server with the URL above, or in JSON:

```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "basis-desk": { "type": "http", "url": "https://basisdesk.news/mcp" }
  }
}
```

**stdio-only clients** — bridge with `mcp-remote`:

```
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "basis-desk": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://basisdesk.news/mcp"] }
  }
}
```

**Raw JSON-RPC** (handy for testing):

```
curl -s https://basisdesk.news/mcp -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"market_snapshot","arguments":{"symbols":["BTC","ETH"]}}}'
```

`token_safety`)
The server is a stateless JSON-RPC handler on Cloudflare Workers (protocol versions 2025-11-25 back to 2024-11-05, no sessions, CORS on). Stories come from an automated pipeline that clusters primary-source documents, drafts with an LLM and runs a grounding audit plus deterministic checks (citations, n-gram overlap, banned phrases) before publishing — so the answers your agent gets carry links you can verify.

There is also a server card at `/.well-known/mcp.json`, an OpenAPI spec for the plain JSON endpoints at `/openapi.json`, and `/llms.txt`.

Free for personal and commercial use with attribution ("Basis Desk" + the article URL). Please keep it to a few requests per second. Data can be delayed; nothing here is investment advice. Docs: [https://basisdesk.news/developers](https://basisdesk.news/developers) — feedback welcome in the comments.