Crypto Quickstart

# Introduction

The Meld Crypto Stack allows you to offer a comprehensive and straightforward way to connect to multiple on-ramps and off-ramps and crypto flows for your Customers. Using our API, you can provide your customers with quotes and use our widget to initiate the purchase process. After you review the documentation, read the API Reference for the Crypto Stack to understand what is required to make the API calls.

To onboard with Meld for Crypto, follow the steps found in the [onboarding guide](https://docs.meld.io/docs/onboarding).

> 📘 Public Postman Workspace
>
> Meld offers public postman collections for our core endpoints to get you started. Please use it in conjunction with the documentation to understand the full power of Meld's API.
>
> The Postman workspace can be found [here](https://www.postman.com/meldeng/workspace/meld-io-public-api-collection).

## Meld Tokens

Whenever you are calling a Meld endpoint about a particular token, make sure you are using the Meld token name. Meld token symbols can be found [here](https://docs.meld.io/docs/supported-crypto-currencies). Meld follows the TOKEN\_NETWORK naming convention, for example Ethereum on Polygon would be ETH\_POLYGON.

## Webhooks

In order for both you and Meld to receive transaction status notifications and updates, you must set up webhooks for your service providers, as shown in the [webhooks quickstart](https://docs.meld.io/docs/webhook-quickstart).

# Environments

Meld offers both production and sandbox environments. The below table contains the base widget URL for each environment:

| Environment | Meld Crypto Widget URL               |
| :---------- | :----------------------------------- |
| Sandbox     | https\:`<area>`//ramp-sb.fluidmoney.io |
| Production  | https\:`<area>`//ramp.fluidmoney.io    |

## Buying and Selling Crypto

Meld supports both on-ramps (buying crypto) and off-ramps (selling crypto) through the same endpoints and service providers to make it as easy as possible to use both products. The [crypto wizard](https://docs.meld.io/docs/crypto-wizard) supports both flows as well. See [buying vs. selling crypto](https://docs.meld.io/docs/buying-vs-selling-crypto) for more details, as well as [supported service providers](https://docs.meld.io/docs/crypto-supported-service-providers-assets).

# Meld Crypto Ramp Widget

## Overview

Meld's Crypto Widget is an easy way to on-ramp (buy crypto) or off-ramp (sell crypto) between crypto and fiat currencies. You can redirect or embed this flexible widget into your customer-facing crypto ramp flows.

The Meld Crypto Widget contains two components:

 **Back-end component**: Used to [request crypto quotes](https://docs.meld.io/reference/crypto-quote-get) and retrieve [transaction status](https://docs.meld.io/reference/payments-transactions-search-1). In addition to providing a transaction status endpoint, you can also subscribe to Meld [webhooks](https://docs.meld.io/docs/webhook-events-crypto) that provide transaction status across all service providers.

**Front-end component**: Once you decide which on-ramp you want to route your customer to, you can create a [crypto widget](https://docs.meld.io/reference/crypto-session-widget-create) and Meld will return a fully formatted URL. 

You do not need to request a quote in order to launch the Meld Crypto Widget with a specific service provider.

## Sample Flows

You can use Meld APIs to create different customer flows, such as:

* **Quote comparison flow** -- Get crypto quotes from multiple service providers. You can display these quotes to your customer and have them select the service provider they wish to use. You can use the customerScore returned in the [Quote Request](https://docs.meld.io/reference/crypto-quote-get) to determine the likelihood of conversion and recommend a service provider.

* **Predetermined on-ramp flow** -- In this case, you have determined which service provider to use, and can directly launch the widget through Meld. You can use the rich information we provide in the quote response to route your customer directly to a particular provider of your choice. For example, you can route based on crypto price or fees.

If you combine the quote and widget products, you can produce a flow like the following:

* **Combined quote and widget flow** -- Show your customer a list of quotes and have them select a service provider. Launch the widget for that service provider to allow your customer to buy or sell crypto through them. Monitor the transaction status via Meld's webhooks.

## Widget vs. Wizard

Both the words widget and wizard are used frequently in the crypto docs, and are easy to confuse with one another. The crypto [widget](https://docs.meld.io/docs/crypto-widget-object) is an integration with a service provider, and is typically the service provider's UI through which a user can purchase or sell crypto. The [wizard](https://docs.meld.io/docs/crypto-wizard) is Meld's UI for users to input their information on how they would like to purchase or sell cryptocurrency, which will then take them to a widget to complete their transaction.

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