Time Zones

## load library
library(cryptoQuotes)

By default all data is returned with Sys.timezone() and, if not specified otherwise, all dates passed into the get-functions are Sys.timezone() too.

Different time zones

OHLC (Local)

If from and to are passed as valid date-type characters, sys.time() or as.POSIXct() without specifying the TZ the returned xts::index() is ‘as is’,

## Get hourly
## BTC between
## 20.00 and 22.00 from
## yesterday
BTC_local <- get_quote(
  ticker   = "BTCUSD",
  source   = "kraken",
  interval = "1h",
  futures  = FALSE,
  from     = paste(Sys.Date()-1, "20:00:00"),
  to       = paste(Sys.Date()-1, "22:00:00")
)

OHLC (UTC)

If from and to are passed as as.POSIXct() while specifying the TZ the returned xts::index() is internally converted,

## Get hourly
## BTC between
## 20.00 and 22.00 from
## yesterday
BTC_utc <- get_quote(
  ticker   = "BTCUSD",
  source   = "kraken",
  interval = "1h",
  futures  = FALSE,
  from     = as.POSIXct(paste(Sys.Date()-1, "20:00:00"), tz = "UTC"),
  to       = as.POSIXct(paste(Sys.Date()-1, "22:00:00"), tz = "UTC")
)

Difference

In each case the returned index is, alongside the OHLC-V data, different,

Time zone comparsion

BTC_local	BTC_utc
2024-05-17 20:00:00	2024-05-17 20:00:00
2024-05-17 21:00:00	2024-05-17 21:00:00
2024-05-17 22:00:00	2024-05-17 22:00:00

Changing the time zones

All time zones can be converted using the xts::tzone()-function. Below is an example of converting the BTC to UTC,

## 1) Change time
## zone to UTC
## 
## Store BTC_utc in
## a new variable to avoid
## replacing it. Not necessary in the 
## real world - its just for 
## demonstrations
BTC_tzone <- BTC_utc

xts::tzone(BTC_tzone) <- "UTC"

Time zone comparsion

Original Index	Converted Index
2024-05-17 20:00:00	2024-05-17 20:00:00
2024-05-17 21:00:00	2024-05-17 21:00:00
2024-05-17 22:00:00	2024-05-17 22:00:00

The converted time zones now match the original argument-input in BTC_utc.