Trading Crypto in Canada

What’s the difference between buying and trading? As a generalization, buying refers to just buying and holding with a longer term time frame in mind. I would say that the intended holding period is more than a year. When buying and holding, you’re more so taking a passive approach to (hopefully) making money.

As for trading however, this is more so an active approach with an intention to make profits quicker. That said, holding periods are usually much shorter (hours, days, weeks). The reason why this distinction matters is because of the fees (and tax implications) associated with buying and trading crypto. The platforms that are great for buying crypto from aren’t great for trading on and vice versa for exchanges; they’re great to trade on but I wouldn’t necessarily use them to just buy and hold my coins on unless there was no other option.

That said, I've listed out what I believe are the best exchanges for Canadians to trade crypto on down below. I have broken down the exchanges by the currency used to trade on. CAD is Canadian dollar while USDT and USDC are stablecoins which have an inherent risk of it depegging from 1 stablecoin to 1 USD which we have witnessed before.

NDAX is the best Canadian crypto exchange for trading, in my opinion, as they've been around since 2017 and plan on continuing their operations as they've taken the steps to get registered with the securities regulators. This means that there's a high degree of confidence that NDAX will continue to remain open for Canadians unlike others (Gate.io, Bybit, Kucoin, and Binance).

NDAX has over 30 coins to trade and they have the best associated fees (0.2% for both makers and takers), liquidity, spread, and advanced trade features among all of the Canadian exchanges. When it comes to funding your account, you can fund it for free via e-transfer. NDAX may also be a good option to buy coins from if you are buying in volume and withdraw your coins somewhat infrequently or don't plan on withdrawing them. With all of that said, no other Canadian crypto exchange comes remotely close to NDAX. This is even more true with their latest mobile application update as they now have TradingView integration. NDAX is a great option for those who want to keep it "Canadian", simple, and convenient.

As a side note, some other benefits of using a Canadian specific exchange would include the elimination of stablecoin depeg risk, the elimination of currency fluctuation risk (no need to worry about going from CAD to USD), and the ease of doing your taxes assuming that everything is traded against CAD.

Get a $10 bonus after a $100 trade on NDAX

more videos...

For those of you who are not in Alberta* and are looking to trade futures or are looking for even more coins to trade or buy, Bitget would be a good option. Bitget is a top 5 exchange for futures (according to Coin Market Cap) and has over 500 trade pairs for their futures and spot market. They have good liquidity and tight spreads for both their spot and futures market. Their starting fees for spot trading is 0.1% for both makers and takers. As for futures trading, their base fees are 0.02% for makers and 0.06% for takers. However, fees can be even lower by using the sign up link. Their trade dashboard has a professional looking design that's easy to navigate along with advanced trade features such as order cancel order, stop losses, and trailing stops. If you like to trade on the go, they have a highly rated mobile application as well. Lastly, they work well with TradingView as you can directly see the charts on there.

One thing to note about Bitget is that you would be using a stablecoin to trade with as they're not a Canadian exchange. This means that you would first need to buy USDC from a Canadian crypto platform first to then send over to Bitget to use (or trade for USDT) to trade with. As you would be using a stablecoin to trade with, some things to consider are: the risk of the stablecoin depegging from 1 stablecoin to 1 USD, currency fluctuation risk, and the potential complications with doing your income taxes.

*Bitget restricts users from Alberta. I have seen people bypass this restriction by registering with their passport and using a VPN. Do this at your own risk.

Save 20% on your trade fees on Bitget

more videos...

Crypto.com Exchange is a good alternative to NDAX is you're looking for more coins to trade or buy, and want tighter spreads and lower trade fees (0.075% for both makers and takers). As you would expect, Crypto.com Exchange has advanced trade features such as stop loss, take profit and order cancel order, and have TradingView charts integrated in their trade dashboard. They also have a user friendly mobile application so you can trade on the go. This essentially makes Crypto.com Exchange a well rounded and versatile exchange to trade on. Lastly, they have taken the necessary steps to get registered with the securities commission which means that they have plans on continuing operations in Canada.

One thing to note about Crypto.com Exchange is that you would be using USDC to trade with as they're not a Canadian exchange. This means that you would first need to buy USDC from a Canadian crypto platform first to then send over to Crypto.com Exchange to use to trade with. As you would be using USDC to trade with, some things to consider are: the risk of USDC depegging from 1 USDC to 1 USD, currency fluctuation risk, and the potential complications with doing your income taxes.

Sign up with Crypto.com Exchange

more videos...

The exchanges that are listed above are all centralized exchanges. This means that the coins and money that you've deposited into your account with the crypto exchange aren't really yours; the exchange owns them but has an obligation to credit them to you. This same idea can be applied to that of having an account with a bank. When you deposit your money into your bank account, that money technically isn't yours; it belongs to the bank. However, the bank has an obligation to credit those funds to you. Now, the big difference between a crypto exchange and a bank though is that with a crypto exchange, loss of funds may not be recoverable. There is no user fund protection like there is with banks (CDIC). The safekeeping of users' funds all depends on how well these exchanges secure the private keys to their coins, or if these exchanges decide to just shut down and take the users' coins along with them. This isn't likely (but can still happen) with the exchanges that are listed above. So essentially, with a centralized exchange, you're giving up ownership of your coins, but, this isn't without something in return. In return, they provide you with support, convenience, and lower trade fees (in general) just to name a few things.

In contrast to what is addressed above, decentralized exchanges are platforms where there's no direct intermediary and smart contracts are used to interact with the platform or exchange. Unlike centralized exchanges, NO KYC is needed. This means that you don't need to upload ID to create an account with the exchange. All you would need to do is connect your crypto wallet to the exchange. The swapping or sending and receiving of funds all uses smart contracts to complete the trades. This is great if you want to have more ownership and control over your coins without geographic limitations.

So the term decentralized exchange encompasses two different services. One would be a swap service where you would trade a coin or token for another coin or token. This would include services like Uniswap, 1INCH and PancakeSwap. The other would be a full on derivatives (futures) exchange like APX Finance (formerly APX Finance).

Now if you've got the technical knowledge (can be learned) and want to have full ownership of your coins, and with no geographic limitation (through the use of a VPN), a decentralized exchange that offers derivatives trading may be of interest to you. This is where APX Finance comes in. 

APX Finance is a decentralized derivatives exchange that offers futures trading but with a centralized exchange like experience. As they’re a decentralized exchange, all you would need is a DeFi wallet that can connect to them, like Binance Wallet,  Metamask, and SafePal; it really only takes a few seconds to connect your wallet to them. Keep in mind that you will need some BNB for depositing and withdrawing funds though. To get some BNB, you can get some from changeNOW. Check out this tutorial video on swapping with changeNOW.

If you're coming from Binance, you'll notice that the trade dashboard is identical. You can trade with both cross and isolated margin, they have limit, market, stop limit orders, take profit, and stop loss orders as well.

They have 60+ trade pairs with a max leverage of 25x, except BTC (200x), ETH (100x) and BNB (100x). Keep in mind that whenever you leverage, you should ALWAYS set a stop loss unless your plan is to get liquidated (lose all of your funds).

In terms of their trade fees, APX Finance's maker fees are 0.02% while taker fees are 0.07%. As they operate on Binance smart chain, this means that transfer fees in BNB to fund your account cost cents, not dollars like with Ethereum. This would also apply to withdrawals, transfer fees in BNB only cost cents.


So all that I’ve just talked about takes place on APX Finance’s trade engine which is known as "V1."  Now if you want full ownership of your coins and don’t want to send anything to v, they have an on-chain version that will allow you to trade derivatives as well which is known as "V2." The difference between V1 and V2 is that with V1, everything happens on APX Finance’s trade engine but with V2, it basically uses smart contracts to execute trades and there's no need to send anything to APX Finance.

One thing to note about APX Finance is that you would be using a stablecoin to trade with as they're not a Canadian exchange. This means that you would first need to buy USDC from a Canadian crypto platform first to then send over to your wallet to use (or trade for USDT) to trade with. As you would be using a stablecoin to trade with, some things to consider are: the risk of the stablecoin depegging from 1 stablecoin to 1 USD, currency fluctuation risk, and the potential complications with doing your income taxes.

If you'd like some help getting started on them and would like 1 on 1 support, check out the consultations page.

Save 20% on your trade fees on APX Finance

Other Crypto Exchanges