Exchanges
A full list of major Canadian bitcoin exchanges, their associated benefits and withdrawal/deposit options is featured below. Bookmark this page for quick and easy reference. CAD to Bitcoin exchange platform MyBTC.ca gives consumers the opportunity to buy Bitcoin instantly with Interac e-Transfer, Instant Debit, Interac Online and Flexepin Vouchers. How does it work? On the “Buy Bitcoin” page of MyBTC.ca select if you want to pay with Interac e-Transfer, Instant Debit, Interac Online and Flexepin Vouchers and then enter the exact amount of Bitcoin you want to buy or the dollar amount that you would like to process your transaction for. You are then prompted to enter a Bitcoin wallet address you want to send the Bitcoin to followed by your phone number for mobile PIN verification. Once you are verified, simply follow the steps the site guides you through and then press “Pay”, which will then process your payment and send your Bitcoin. It’s that easy! www.MyBTC.ca
Bitbuy is one of Canada’s most trusted Digital Currency Exchanges. Their mission is to provide convenient, dependable and secure access to Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Bitbuy is a platform for everyone, from beginners looking to dip their toes into the market to more experienced traders looking for deep liquidity. They currently offer CAD paired to Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The Bitbuy.ca proprietary exchange platform is backed by top blockchain security protocols, offers a number of convenient funding options, lightening fast turnaround times and unmatched customer service. If you need assistance you can easily call them or contact their support. They guarantee prompt and friendly customer service.
- Fund your account with Digital Currency or Canadian dollars through bank wire, Interac Online, Interac e-Transfer or Flexepin voucher
- Get a quote to either buy or sell BTC, BCH, LTC or ETH with CAD
- Move your coins to your wallet or your CAD back to your bank account
With top customer service and banking relationships Bitbuy.ca is able to help you get Canadian Dollars for your Cryptocurrency faster than any other cryptocurrency exchange in Canada. Try it out today!
For those of you that would rather buy bitcoin directly from another person, you should try LocalBitcoins.com. They are a global marketplace that allow you to buy from sellers, locally, with a variety of payment methods that include Cash Deposit at any major bank, Interac
e-Transfers, Western Union, PayPal and many others, all on LocalBitcoins.com. To protect you against fraud and provide peace-of-mind when conducting an online transaction, LocalBitcoins.com uses escrow to take the bitcoins you have reserved from the seller’s account and hold on to them until the seller releases. If you have in fact paid and the seller does not release for some reason, you can file a dispute and LocalBitcoins will resolve it for you. So hang on to your receipt! LocalBitcoins.com is the best service to use for those who want bitcoins almost instantly.
Shakepay
An easy way to buy Bitcoins with interact e-Transfer and cash it out directly to your bank account. It is a company based in Montreal that strives to help Canadians from all walks of life to build their wealth through their own financial applications.
The company sells digital currencies (such as Bitcoins or Ethereum) directly to its customers. Their customers can also sell Bitcoins to them and the company will buy them directly, meaning the company is in charge of setting the price at which customers can sell and buy the cryptocurrencies. If there is a disparity between those two figures that is because Shakepay will use it as revenue to cover the costs of the business. Anyone can have access to these figures through the Buy & Sell section of the Shakepay app.
- The main benefit of Shakepay is they don’t charge a commission. Their service is proudly commission-free for the buying, selling, or moving of cryptocurrencies. They also cover the transaction fees if their customers wish to move their money off the platform, to a bitcoin address for example.
Coinsmart
This cryptocurrency exchange company is based in Toronto and was founded in 2018 by Justin Hartzman and Jeremy Koven. Their mission was to offer a reliable exchange that any Canadian could use, making it beginner friendly and accessible. To that end, they pride themselves on having a fast-verification system (almost instantaneous), a very user-friendly and well-designed interface, and many different options for funding in fiat currencies. They currently support 16 cryptocurrencies
- The first benefit of this company is its wide range of possibilities: although they aim to be useful to all types of users, they do have some advanced options for experienced and higher-volume traders.
- The second bonus of this platform is that they have the lowest trading fees in Canada, at just 0.2%.
- The third bonus is a key factor of the company’s security policies: they have bank-level security and are committed to transparency. The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) designated the company as Registered Marketplace, while they are also registered with FINTRAC as a Money Services Business, on top of being a member of TRUST, the anti-money laundering group. This is how they guarantee they are a highly secured exchange. To keep their customer’s trust, they also maintain a 95% cold storage policy, and they get their financials annually audited by a third-party firm, given that they are a publicly-traded company.
VirgoCX
Virgo CX is Canada’s top-regulated platform dedicated to cryptocurrency exchanges. As most of these platforms do, this company aims to make crypto trading easy, affordable, and safe for every Canadian. In order to buy Bitcoin through Virgo CX, users simply need to create an account, fill in some information, and then just fund their account with INTERAC e-Transfer, wire transfer, and some additional options. After that, they are free to buy their intended cryptocurrency.
- Following the lead of Shakepay, Virgo CX doesn’t charge any trading fees nor any deposit fees, and maintains low withdrawal fees (clients should pay only 0.75%.), this definitely comes as the first benefit of this platform.
- The company is said to offer over 50 cryptocurrencies, claiming to have one of the biggest selections of coins in Canada, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, Litecoin, Stellar, EOS, USD Coins, Bitcoin Cash, Paxgold, Dogecoin, Uniswap and more.
- Lastly, in terms of security, they are highly committed to transparency and anti-money laundering practices. The platform requires 2-factor authentication on all accounts while maintaining a 95% cold storage policy, all with the purpose of keeping your assets safe at all times.
Coinberry
Coinberry is yet another Canadian-founded cryptocurrency exchange company and it is based in Toronto. It was founded in 2017, at which point it was actually a Bitcoin ATM service; nowawayds it is a crypto exchange company. To deposit money into their accounts, users can opt for credit cards and INTERAC e-transfers.
- The first benefit of using this company relates to funding methods: when it comes to buying cryptocurrencies, Coinberry offers multiple funding methods, like wire transfer, e-transfer, debit, and credit card options. They also have a feature for purchases: the Coinberry Autopilot.
- This ground-breaking Coinberry Autopilot option becomes the second benefit as it allows users to purchase cryptocurrencies automatically. To achieve it they use dollar cost averaging, a time-tested investing strategy that allows users to systemically invest equal amounts of money throughout regular intervals, without having to worry about the price of a security, which can reduce the general impact of price volatility while at the same time lowering the average cost per share. Coinberry is actually the only crypto exchange in Canada that gives its users this feature.
Newton
Newton is a Toronto based company that is rapidly growing in popularity thanks to their constant additions of coins and features. They have an easy to use mobile app that has great ratings on both IOS and Android.
Let’s dive right into their benefits:
- They have competitive spreads (0.2% – 0.7%) on over 70 coins (like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Cardano, Tether, Dogecoin, Ripple and many others); this means they have a wider variety of coins compared to other Canadian exchanges.
- In terms of safety, Newton ranks very high on our scale, given that thay are registered with FINTRAC as an MSB (money services business) as well as being PIPEDA-compliant. The company also uses daily off-site backups with institutional-grade storage. Let’s not forget, they use direct bank integration to minimize fraud. All of this combined explains the fact that they have never been hacked and maintain an overall customer appreciation.
- As a bonus point, all the customer data is store in Canada, which we find to be very valuable.
Sadly, they do have one issue:
- They claim to be a “no-fees-charged cryptocurrency exchange” but, after careful consideration, we have determined that is not quite true. Although they don’t in fact charge any money in order to deposit funds as well as having a flat fee attached to every trade, the money they do charge rests in the spreads the company offers in the trading interface. While the exact number of the spreads fee is not readily available, these types of exchanges within spreads can generally charge anywhere from 1% to 5% of the price. This is not a major issue, which is why we don’t classify this as a con, simply keep this in mind if you decide to use this platform.
Crypto.com
This is a crypto exchange company that is based in Singapore. Although this isn’t a Canadian-owned or based company, it is a major global player that brings many benefits and opportunities to Canadian crypto investors.
- Their initial benefit is one we haven’t explored yet: they offer the possibility to invest in undiscovered altcoins, but that is not all.
- The company also has some undeniable advantages over its Canadian counterparts: users are able to trade options and future contracts (crypto derivatives), can make trades with up to 10x leverage, and even earn interest by staking their coins. Talk about a game-changer, eh?
- Their average trading fees are at 0.4%, which does mean the Canadian companies have a slight advantage in that aspect, but Crypto.com makes up for it by giving users the option to purchase newly-listed coins at up to 50% off as well as having free deposits from all cryptocurrencies.
- They do work with Bitcoins and Ethereum, but their portfolio is much wider than just those two main currencies, which makes this company a solid participant.
As good as this all sounds, they do have a recent issue:
- In January 2022, the company was hacked, which resulted in US $15 million stolen Ether. Thankfully, the company acted quickly and released a statement assuring that the customer’s funds were not lost. This reveals an issue with the company’s security measures and although they acted with transparency and urgency to resolve the issue, this still grants them this warning sign from our team of experts.
Binance
Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of the daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. It was founded in 2017 and is now registered in the Cayman Islands, after being originally established in Hong Kong. Although this isn’t a Canadian company, its prestige and undeniable power make this an obvious addition to our list.
Contrary to most of the companies we have reviewed so far, Binance prides itself on being a highly helpful platform specifically with experienced traders in mind. Their built-in charting tool brings many possibilities for traders, from placing market and taking profit, to other much more complex orders designed to limit potential losses while securing profits. Given that their target audience is more seasoned traders and as such their interface, as well as what they offer to customers, is much more complex, it’s no wonder their fees are higher than what we have seen this far: crypto deposits are still free with Binance, but their crypto withdrawals do have a transaction fee that could be anywhere between 0% to 2.5%, which will depend on the cryptocurrency. Fiat deposits carry a fee as well, ranging from 0% to 4.5%, which will vary depending on the deposit method you chose and the fiat currency involved. On top of that, Binance also charges a maker-taker fee structure with different tiers in place, which is a transaction cost that happens when orders are placed and filled.
In a nutshell, Binance is definitely what we would consider to be a powerful crypto trading platform.
Let’s take a look at the top 2 benefits of this exchange company:
- Binance offers a Visa card that allows you to spend your crypto right away and with no issues or restrictions. The way the card works is by exchanging your crypto into fiat at the moment the transaction takes place, that way retailers are not required to accept crypto in the first place or buy any specific hardware in order to accept the card. This card supports Google Pay and Samsung Pay and enhances your exposure to crypto by exchanging it at the last minute. Rather than making frequent crypto to fiat exchanges, which will end up costing you more, with Binance you can hold on to your crypto until the exact moment in which you spend it. With this Visa Binance card, simply move your cryptocurrencies from your online wallet into the funding wallet that Binance offers you and start using it wherever Visa cards are accepted, worldwide.
- As if that wasn’t enough, Binance allows you to stake your crypto, thereby earning rewards at any APY rate 0.8% to 123%. This rate will of course depend on the coin in question and how long you plan to stake it for, but regardless of that, we still consider this to be a significant bonus. Users are allowed to stake up to 6 different cryptocurrencies: Binance Coin (BNB), Axie Shards (AXS), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin (BTC), Tether (USDT), and Binance USD (BUSD). If you stake your coins you are also entitled to double payouts specifically in instant trading and pooling tokens thanks to the Binance Liquid Swap option they have available.
As fascinating and definitely useful Binance is, we do need to highlight a potentially relevant con:
- They do not accept Canadian dollars. They are nevertheless allowed to operate in Canada and if you truly are a season trader this might not affect you that much, but it still couldn’t hurt to keep it in mind. If this does pose a problem for you, maybe consider a different platform.
Kraken
Based in San Francisco and founded in 2011, Kraken is both a crypto exchange and a bank that allows users to trade fiat currencies (like USD or CAD) for cryptocurrencies and vice-versa, as well as trade some cryptocurrencies for others. One of the biggest pros of this company is the fact that it supports a whopping 93+ different digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and many more. This platform takes us back to the user-friendly interface with everyone from beginners to expert traders in mind.
The best perk of using Kraken is:
- It has a built-in crypto watch feature, designed to help you keep track of the digital currency market so you can conduct trades just at the right moment. This feature also allows you to set price and volume alerts when needed. They also have a growing library of data visualization that lets you analyze any crypto market development as well as make trades on the different crypto markets through multiple exchanges, regardless of whether it is on their website or through the Kraken app.
As good as this all sounds, you do need to keep in mind one issue, their fees:
- While many of the companies we’ve reviewed so far are free or practically free, Kraken does not follow that lead. Although their fees can be considered low, with trading rates from 0% to 0.26% per trade, there is still a twist. The user will incur in a 3.75% + €0.25 for crypto credit card purchases as well as a 0.5% plus 0.9% or 1.5% for ACH crypto purchases, a first for a company on our list.
- Alongside that, Canadian users will have some additional issues with this platform, such as having to follow the IRS’s rules instead of the CRA’s ones, and their multiple levels of ID verification do mean the time it takes them to varify your account might be higher, but this also shows how committed they are to safety: they have a 2-factor authentication process and a Masterkey level of security; they have also never been hacked.
Gemini
Gemini is both a cryptocurrency exchange and a crypto custodian founded by the Winklevoss brothers in 2014 and whose headquarter resides in New York. It is designed for customers that want to buy, trade, sell and even store a wide range of digital assets (with over 40 cryptocurrencies supported in Canada), among which are Bitcoin (BTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Cardano (ADA).
1. Gemini’s top benefit is hidden among its user-friendly and seemingly normal interface: a great and accessible interface has started to become a common feature among most of the companies we have reviewed so far, but Gemini takes it one step further, introducing a “My portfolio” section. This is definitely the way to make crypto investments easier, both for newbies and experienced traders. It allows users to keep track of their accounts and view their balance from one comfortable space. It also gives them access to 24-hour change and percent changes in one simple look.
The only issue we see with this platform comes from its fees:
1) Their fees will mostly depend on the platform used by each individual but they are likely to be maxed out at around 1.49%. For debit card users, however, their fee will have to be 3.49%. On top of that, Gemini charges a flat 0.5% above the current trading prices for mobile and app users. Finally, the transaction fees will be based on the amount of crypto to be traded, which in general means it could range from $0.99 to $2.99 or 1.49%. Users do have up to 10 free crypto withdrawals available per month, regardless of the cryptocurrency, but any extra withdrawals beyond that point will come with high fees.
Coinbase
Coinbase is an American-based exchange company founded in 2012 and is one of the most respected ones in the world, with over 40 million verified users across 100 countries. This, as well as their strong commitment to security and their large workforce, makes Coinbase an undisputed leading entity in the world of cryptocurrencies; it’s the world’s second-largest crypto exchange after Binance. They currently work with over 100 cryptocurrencies where the popular Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin are included, although Bitcoin was the only one they originally supported. The fees charged by transactions are pretty straightforward with Coinbase. Cryptocurrency purchases that don’t exceed $200 USD will come with a $0.99 to $2.99 fee, and only if the user exceeds that $200 limit will the percentages change.
This company has many great benefits for its users, such as:
- They offer a Coinbase Pro option, which is the platform’s premium service where users get access to the advanced trading options of the platform. Advanced charting tools and a reduction in the percentages of the trading fees across the board are just some of the benefits these Pro users will enjoy, which are sadly not available through the standard Coinbase service.
- Coinbase also offers its Coinbase Earn features: a collection of educational resources aimed at beginner crypto investors. It comes with video tutorials regarding specific cryptocurrencies and their characteristics, with a test at the end to see if the user has learned any valuable information. Although this might seem childish, good test results prompt small rewards in said cryptocurrencies that will be deposited into each user’s Coinbase account; it doesn’t seem so pointless now, eh?
- Finally, Coinbase has an online storage wallet available for its users on its app, which enables individuals to manage their private keys and crypto assets, all from the same app. To quiet any potential worries, this wallet feature comes with a recovery phrase, which means no one else can have access to your digital assets.