Add Hive to Claude Desktop and Claude can answer live crypto questions with grounded data instead of 2024 training-cutoff guesses. Thirty seconds, one JSON paste, no code.

Before you start

Claude Desktop installed from claude.ai/download.
A free Hive API key from /dashboard/keys. No card required.

30-second setup

1. Open the config file

In Claude Desktop, go to Settings → Developer → Edit Config. This opens claude_desktop_config.json in your default editor.

2. Paste this into the file

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "hive": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "hive-intelligence@latest"],
      "env": {
        "HIVE_API_KEY": "YOUR_HIVE_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Replace YOUR_HIVE_API_KEY with the key you generated at /dashboard/keys.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Quit Claude fully (⌘Q on macOS) and reopen. Claude will pick up the MCP server on launch.

4. Verify it worked

Start a new chat in Claude and type:

"What is the current price of Bitcoin and Ethereum?"

Claude should call Hive's get_price tool and return a live answer. If you see the tool call in Claude's UI, you're connected.

What to ask once connected

Hive exposes hundreds of tools across 14 categories. Claude discovers them automatically — you do not need to name them in your prompts. Try:

"Check if token 0x6B175474E89094C44Da98b954EedeAC495271d0F is safe to buy — honeypot, owner risks, liquidity depth."
"Which DeFi pools on Ethereum have a 7-day yield above 10% with at least $10M TVL?"
"What is the profit and loss of vitalik.eth's wallet this year?"
"Has any whale moved more than $5M of USDC onchain in the last 24 hours?"
"Compare BTC perpetual funding rates across Binance, Bybit, and OKX right now."

Troubleshooting

Claude doesn't show the Hive tools. Quit and relaunch Claude Desktop fully. macOS sometimes keeps the process in the dock — right-click → Quit.

"Command not found: npx". Install Node.js 18 or higher from nodejs.org. Restart Claude after installing.

"HIVE_API_KEY is invalid". Double-check the key at /dashboard/keys. The key should be a long string without quotes inside the JSON.

Tools time out. Check your network — Hive's endpoint is mcp.hiveintelligence.xyz. Corporate VPNs sometimes block MCP stdio transport; use Claude on a home network first to isolate.

Other clients

Claude Code — if you prefer the terminal CLI
Cursor — for IDE-native crypto queries
All clients — full list

Next steps

Hive for AI Agents — what Claude can build once Hive is wired in
Tools Reference — every tool Claude can call
Data Sources — the upstream providers Hive normalizes