Crypto Genie — A Smart Solution For Managing Your Daily Crypto Tasks

“Alexa, ask Crypto Genie, get my portfolio status.”

From turning on the bedroom lights to play the favorite playlist, only thing you need is to just ask for it with your sweet and charming voice — Amazon’s voice based smart service Alexa fulfills all your requests with ease. Welcome to the amazing world of Artificial Intelligence! Crypto Genie is a new addition to the plethora of unique Alexa skill list.

Crypto Genie is an Amazon Alexa skill and a one stop solution for crypto enthusiasts to get all crypto currency related information very quickly, starting from checking any coin latest prices to tracking user portfolio, just by using an Amazon Echo Device.

Amazon Echo Device Family

Crypto Genie keeps the user up to date with the latest happenings of crypto world. The user only have to select their desired choice from a predefined list of menu items and the skill fulfills the request by utilizing Amazon’s voice based smart service, Alexa to process the user data in real time.

Crypto Genie — The Introduction

One the most unique feature of Crypto Genie, which differentiate it from other existing crypto related Alexa skills, is that a user can create and track their personal portfolio.

1. Open Amazon Alexa app.
2. Go to “Skills” section.
3. Search for “Crypto Genie” skill.
4. Click on “Enable” button.
5. You will be automatically redirected to “Account linking” page.
6. Complete account linking process using your Amazon credentials.

Congratulations! Crypto Genie is now enabled on your Echo device.

1. Launch the skill: Say the phrase, “Alexa, open crypto genie”. The skill launches with a custom greetings message.
2. Listen to the Menu Items: After launching the skill, Alexa provide a list of menu items to the user.
3. Tell Alexa Your Choice: Choose any one option from the listed menu items and tell it to Alexa.

Choice-1: Top Ten Crypto Currency prices

Choose this option to get the latest prices of top ten crypto currencies in real time.

Choice-2: Check Price of Any Coin

Choose this option to get the latest price of any coin. The option only accept currency symbol. Like say BTC for bitcoin or say LTC for litecoin. At the time of writing this article, the skill supports nearly 2300 coins.

Choice-3: Ongoing ICO

Choose this option to get the list of top five currently ongoing ICOs, along with their start date, end date and a brief description of the project.

Choice-4: Social Media Facts

Select this option to get social media(twitter, reddit, facebook etc) related information about any coin. The option only accept currency symbol. For example, to search for bitcoin say BTC or for litecoin say LTC. At the time of writing this article, the skill supports nearly 2300 coins.

Choice-5: Crypto Headlines

Select this option to get the latest crypto related news from last 24 hours.

Choice-6: Add Coin to Portfolio

Choose this option to add a new coin to your portfolio. The option only accept currency symbol. For example, to add bitcoin to your portfolio say BTC or to add litecoin say LTC. At the time of writing this article, the skill supports nearly 2300 coins.

Choice-7: Remove Coin from Portfolio

Choose this option to remove any coin from portfolio. The option only accept currency symbol. For example, to remove bitcoin from your portfolio say BTC or for litecoin say LTC.

Choice-8: Get Portfolio Status

Choose this option to get the overall valuation of user portfolio.

Amazon Alexa is the main brain behind Crypto Genie. The skill uses a mechanism called ‘dialog delegate’ to interact with users. Due to the limitation of Amazon Alexa SDK, the skill supports only integer and whole numbers(like 5, 37, 194 etc). Any type of decimal or floating numbers(like 1.2, 92.74, 37.461 etc) are not supported. To overcome this problem, Crypto Genie uses a smart solution, as described below:

• Input Buying Price: When a user wants to add a coin to their portfolio, Alexa prompts the user to enter the buying price of each coin. Now supplying the price in USD will mostly include a decimal value. So to avoid this, Crypto Genie uses another unit called “satoshi”. Those familiar with cryoto currencies already know that one bitcoin(BTC) is equal to one hundred million satoshi(SAT) i.e. 1 BTC = 100 000 000 SAT. So upon receiving the input from user in “satoshi”, Cryto Genie automatically converts the value of SAT to BTC first and then from BTC to USD at the current market rate. So the actual buying price stored in the database is always in USD.

• Input Quantity: To add a coin in portfolio, Alexa needs to know the quantity of coins to add. Let’s call this quantity as Actual Quantity(AQ). Normally AQ may have a decimal value like 0.2 BTC or 2.3 ETH etc. So to avoid this situation, Crypto Genie asks the user to provide two input values. They are called: Whole Quantity(WQ) and Fractional Quantity(FQ). It then uses the formula: AQ =WQ / FQ, to calculate the actual quantity of coins and then adds it to the user portfolio. Point to note here is that WQ must be an integer or whole number. And FQ can have only one of the these listed values: One(1), Ten(10), One Hundred(100), One Thousand(1000), Ten Thousand(10000) or One Hundred Thousand(100000). Let’s take some examples to make it clear:

To add 0.2 BTC in the portfolio, all the below listed values are considered valid by Crypto Genie:

WQ=2, FQ=10

WQ=20, FQ=100

WQ=200, FQ=1000

WQ=2000, FQ=10000

WQ=20000, FQ=100000

Similarly, to remove 5 ETH from the portfolio, the user may provide anyone of the below listed values:

WQ=5, FQ=1

WQ=50, FQ=10

WQ=500, FQ=100

WQ=5000, FQ=1000

WQ=50000, FQ=10000

WQ=500000, FQ=100000

The same logic is applicable when a user wants to delete any coin from their portfolio.

So the users are strictly advised to follow the instructions of Alexa when providing their input. Otherwise the skill may produce unpredictable results.

Crypto Genie is an application designed and developed to help all the crypto currency enthusiasts. So please feel free to share your feedback and opinion to improve the application. In case you like the application, please don’t forget to leave a comment below.

You can visit the official Facebook page of Crypto Genie to leave your comments and suggestions. You can also join my Telegram channel to directly interact with me. To interact with other Crypto Genie skill users, you can also visit the BitcoinTalk Forum.