Cryptocurrencies Graph price using a Raspberry Pi and 3.5” LCD Display

Saturday, Apr 11, 2020 | 4 minute read | Updated at Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Cryptocurrencies Graph price using  a Raspberry Pi and 3.5” LCD Display

We will use the project [Bitcoin chart for the terminal][1] as command line util. For a list of supported cryptocurrencies see [coins][2].

Shopping list

You need obviously a raspberry pi, ideally with WIFI build in if you don ’t like cables

  • Raspberry pi 1, single core, will require an Ethernet cable
  • Raspberry pi 2 , dual core, will require an Ethernet cable
  • Raspberry pi 3 or 4, a bit a shame to use this amount of power for that task, but has built in WIFI

A 3.5" LCD screen from Amazon

  • Raspberry Pi LCD Display Module 3.5inch 320X480 TFT

  • Raspberry Pi LCD Display Module 3.5inch 320X480 TFT

Installing the Software

Your SD-card needs to contain the software. You can take the long road by building the SD-card image yourself or use the already prepared SD-Card image:

Download SD-Card image – Version 1.0: SOON

SHA-256: xxxxxxxxxxx

Write the SD-Card image to your SD Card

You need to write the downloaded SD card image (the img.gz-file) to your SD card (16 GB minimum) – you can use the very easy tool Balena Etcher for this: https://www.balena.io/etcher/ .. it ’s available for Win, Mac & Linux.

Insert the SD card and connect the power plug.

  • Make sure to connect the raspberry with a LAN cable to the internet at this point.
  • Make sure that your laptop and the raspberry are on the same local network.

BUILDING THE SD CARD

[Raspbian][3] is THE official operating system for all models of the Raspberry Pi.

Raspbian is a Debian-based (32 bit) computer operating system for Raspberry Pi. There are several versions of Raspbian including Raspbian Buster and Raspbian Stretch. Since 2015 it has been officially provided by the Raspberry Pi Foundation as the primary operating system for the family of Raspberry Pi single-board computers.

We now use the Raspberry Pi Imager for an easy way to install Raspbian and other operating systems to an SD card ready to use with your Raspberry Pi:

  • [Raspberry Pi Imager for Windows][4]
  • [Raspberry Pi Imager for macOS][5]
  • [Raspberry Pi Imager for Ubuntu][6]

Choose Raspbian other, then lite. When finished boot the image and connect the pi to WIFI

bash sudo raspi-config

  • Under localization options, set the proper keyboard layout
  • Under network, connect to your WIFI
  • Under interfaces, activate SSH
sudo apt install npm
sudo npm install bitcoin-chart-cli -g```

## Install LCD drivers

My screen is the http://www.lcdwiki.com/3.5inch_RPi_Display 

```bash # install LCD driver
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install git
rm -r LCD-show
git clone https://github.com/goodtft/LCD-show.git
sudo chmod -R 755 LCD-show
cd LCD-show/
sudo apt-mark hold raspberrypi-bootloader
sudo ./LCD35-show  # PI will reboot now automatically```

## Run the script after autologin

Add to your .bashrc, you can also add -c ETH with <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://github.com/madnight/bitcoin-chart-cli/blob/HEAD/COINS.md" target="_blank">one of the supported coins</a>,

```vi .bashrc```

add at the end of file

```bash # -d, --days &lt;n>          number of days the chart will go back
# --hours &lt;n>             number of hours the chart will go back
#  --mins &lt;n>              number of minutes the chart will go back
#  -w, --width &lt;n>         max terminal chart width
#  -h, --height &lt;n>        max terminal chart height
#  -c, --coin &lt;string>     specify the coin e.g. ETH
#  -m, --currency &lt;string> specify the trading pair currency (Default: USD)
#  --disable-legend        disable legend text
watch -n60 -t -c bitcoin-chart-cli --mins 1200 -w 50```

## Set the PI to autologin

```bash # set Raspi to boot up automatically with user pi (for the LCD)
# https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21632
sudo raspi-config nonint do_boot_behaviour B2
sudo bash -c "echo '[Service]' >> /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]/autologin.conf"
sudo bash -c "echo 'ExecStart=' >> /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]/autologin.conf"
sudo bash -c "echo 'ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin pi --noclear %I 38400 linux' >> /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]/autologin.conf"```

and reboot

```bash sudo reboot```<figure class="wp-block-image size-large">

![](https://www.waltercedric.com/2020/04/cryptocurrencies-graph-raspberry-pi-lcd-1024x626.webp)

## SSH login do not work anymore?

After that you can not log anymore with SSH to the PI user, to be able to login, add a USB keyboard and type

```bash sudo raspi-config nonint do_boot_behaviour B1```

Run again the following to enable auto-login

```bash sudo raspi-config nonint do_boot_behaviour B2```

 [1]: https://github.com/madnight/bitcoin-chart-cli
 [2]: https://github.com/madnight/bitcoin-chart-cli/blob/HEAD/COINS.md
 [3]: /tag/Raspbian/
 [4]: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/imager/imager.exe
 [5]: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/imager/imager.dmg
 [6]: https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/imager/imager_amd64.deb

© 1997 - 2026 Cédric Walter blog

🌱 Powered by Hugo with theme Dream.

Others

If you like my work or find it helpful, please consider buying me a cup of coffee ☕️. It inspires me to create and maintain more projects in the future. 🦾

It is better to attach some information or leave a message so that I can record the donation 📝 , thank you very much 🙏.

Copyright information

All editorial content and graphics on our sites are protected by U.S. copyright, international treaties, and other applicable copyright laws and may not be copied without the express permission of Cedric Walter, which reserves all rights. Reuse of any of Cedric Walter editorial content and graphics for any purpose without The author ’s permission is strictly prohibited.

DO NOT copy or adapt the HTML or other code that this site creates to generate pages. It also is covered by copyright.

Reproduction without explicit permission is prohibited. All Rights Reserved. All photos remain copyright © their rightful owners. No copyright infringement is intended.

Disclaimer: The editor(s) reserve the right to edit any comments that are found to be abusive, offensive, contain profanity, serves as spam, is largely self-promotional, or displaying attempts to harbour irrelevant text links for any purpose.

About me

Cédric Walter is a French-Swiss software engineer based in Zurich, Switzerland. PGP: DF52 ADDA C81A 08A6