Pyth Network Development Guide

Pyth Network is a decentralized oracle providing real-time price feeds for cryptocurrencies, equities, forex, and commodities. This guide covers integrating Pyth price feeds into Solana applications.

Overview

Pyth Network provides:

• Real-Time Price Feeds - 400ms update frequency with pull oracle model
• Confidence Intervals - Statistical uncertainty bounds for each price
• EMA Prices - Exponential moving average prices (~1 hour window)
• Multi-Asset Support - Crypto, equities, FX, commodities, indices
• On-Chain Integration - CPI for Solana programs
• Off-Chain Integration - HTTP and WebSocket APIs via Hermes

Program IDs

Deployed on: Solana Mainnet, Devnet, Eclipse Mainnet/Testnet, Sonic networks

Popular Price Feed IDs

Full list: https://pyth.network/developers/price-feed-ids

Quick Start

Installation

# TypeScript/JavaScript
npm install @pythnetwork/hermes-client @pythnetwork/pyth-solana-receiver

# Rust (add to Cargo.toml)
# pyth-solana-receiver-sdk = "0.3.0"

Fetch Price (Off-Chain)

import { HermesClient } from "@pythnetwork/hermes-client";

const client = new HermesClient("https://hermes.pyth.network");

const priceIds = [
  "0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43", // BTC/USD
];

const priceUpdates = await client.getLatestPriceUpdates(priceIds);

for (const update of priceUpdates.parsed) {
  const price = update.price;
  const displayPrice = Number(price.price) * Math.pow(10, price.expo);
  console.log(`Price: $${displayPrice.toFixed(2)}`);
  console.log(`Confidence: ±${Number(price.conf) * Math.pow(10, price.expo)}`);
}

Use Price On-Chain (Rust/Anchor)

use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
use pyth_solana_receiver_sdk::price_update::PriceUpdateV2;

#[derive(Accounts)]
pub struct UsePrice<'info> {
    pub price_update: Account<'info, PriceUpdateV2>,
}

pub fn use_price(ctx: Context<UsePrice>) -> Result<()> {
    let price_update = &ctx.accounts.price_update;
    let clock = Clock::get()?;

    // Get price no older than 60 seconds
    let price = price_update.get_price_no_older_than(
        &clock,
        60, // max age in seconds
    )?;

    msg!("Price: {} × 10^{}", price.price, price.exponent);
    msg!("Confidence: ±{}", price.conf);

    Ok(())
}

Core Concepts

Price Structure

Each Pyth price contains:

Converting to display price:

const displayPrice = price * Math.pow(10, expo);
// Example: price=19405100, expo=-2 → $194,051.00

Confidence Intervals

Confidence intervals represent the uncertainty in the reported price:

// Price is $50,000 ± $50 means:
// - 68% chance true price is between $49,950 - $50,050
// - Use confidence for risk management

const price = 50000;
const confidence = 50;

// Safe lower bound (conservative)
const safeLowerBound = price - confidence;

// Safe upper bound (conservative)
const safeUpperBound = price + confidence;

Best Practice: Reject prices with confidence > 2% of price:

const maxConfidenceRatio = 0.02; // 2%
const confidenceRatio = confidence / Math.abs(price);

if (confidenceRatio > maxConfidenceRatio) {
  throw new Error("Price confidence too wide");
}

EMA Prices

Exponential Moving Average prices smooth out short-term volatility:

• ~1 hour averaging window (5921 Solana slots)
• Weighted by inverse confidence (tight confidence = more weight)
• Good for: liquidations, collateral valuation
• Available as ema_price and ema_conf

// Use EMA for less volatile applications
const emaPrice = priceUpdate.emaPrice;
const emaConf = priceUpdate.emaConf;

Off-Chain Integration

Hermes Client

Hermes is the recommended way to fetch Pyth prices off-chain.

Public Endpoint: https://hermes.pyth.network

For production, get a dedicated endpoint from a Pyth data provider.

Fetching Latest Prices

import { HermesClient } from "@pythnetwork/hermes-client";

const client = new HermesClient("https://hermes.pyth.network");

// Single price
const btcPrice = await client.getLatestPriceUpdates([
  "0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43"
]);

// Multiple prices in one request
const prices = await client.getLatestPriceUpdates([
  "0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43", // BTC
  "0xff61491a931112ddf1bd8147cd1b641375f79f5825126d665480874634fd0ace", // ETH
  "0xef0d8b6fda2ceba41da15d4095d1da392a0d2f8ed0c6c7bc0f4cfac8c280b56d", // SOL
]);

Streaming Real-Time Updates

import { HermesClient } from "@pythnetwork/hermes-client";

const client = new HermesClient("https://hermes.pyth.network");

const priceIds = [
  "0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43"
];

// Subscribe to real-time updates via SSE
const eventSource = await client.getPriceUpdatesStream(priceIds, {
  parsed: true,
});

eventSource.onmessage = (event) => {
  const data = JSON.parse(event.data);
  console.log("Price update:", data);
};

eventSource.onerror = (error) => {
  console.error("Stream error:", error);
  eventSource.close();
};

// Close when done
// eventSource.close();

Posting Prices to Solana

import { PythSolanaReceiver } from "@pythnetwork/pyth-solana-receiver";
import { HermesClient } from "@pythnetwork/hermes-client";
import { Connection, Keypair } from "@solana/web3.js";

const connection = new Connection("https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com");
const wallet = Keypair.fromSecretKey(/* your key */);

const hermesClient = new HermesClient("https://hermes.pyth.network");
const pythReceiver = new PythSolanaReceiver({ connection, wallet });

// Fetch price update data
const priceUpdateData = await hermesClient.getLatestPriceUpdates([
  "0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44dc12de5db330f7ac66b72dc658afedf0f4a415b43"
]);

// Build transaction to post price
const transactionBuilder = pythReceiver.newTransactionBuilder();
await transactionBuilder.addPostPriceUpdates(priceUpdateData.binary.data);

// Add your program instruction that uses the price
// transactionBuilder.addInstruction(yourInstruction);

// Send transaction
const transactions = await transactionBuilder.buildVersionedTransactions({
  computeUnitPriceMicroLamports: 50000,
});

for (const tx of transactions) {
  const sig = await connection.sendTransaction(tx);
  console.log("Transaction:", sig);
}

On-Chain Integration (Rust)

Setup

Add to Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
pyth-solana-receiver-sdk = "0.3.0"
anchor-lang = "0.30.1"

Reading Price in Anchor Program

use anchor_lang::prelude::*;
use pyth_solana_receiver_sdk::price_update::{PriceUpdateV2, get_feed_id_from_hex};

declare_id!("YourProgramId...");

// BTC/USD price feed ID
const BTC_USD_FEED_ID: &str = "0xe62df6c8b4a85fe1a67db44d