Canadian Bitcoins – Is It Good?
Canadian Bitcoins is a simple cryptocurrency exchange made by Canadians for Canadians to help them trade their Canadian dollars into Bitcoin and other alt-coins.
But how good is Canadian Bitcoins? Is Canadian Bitcoins trustworthy? Why does it operate from a tiny island far from its market? And, most importantly, how does it stack up against other platforms?
What Does Canadian Bitcoins provide?
Created in 2011, Canadian Bitcoins is quite ancient in cryptocurrency terms, and you can see it reflected in their website. Canadian Bitcoins’ home page is just a small page with lots of text and a small text box for you to place an order or sell.
To buy Bitcoins, Canadian Bitcoins offers you a wide arrange of options. You can use e-Transfers, Interac email transfer requests and even in-person options if you live in Ottawa. In fact, although they don’t recommend it, you can even put your money in an envelope with a stamp and send it to them to buy crypto. And although the interface isn’t particularly pretty, it is very functional and easy to use.
To start off you need to create an account in the website. You will need to provide a lot of information about yourself, including your ID, before you can be eligible to make any transaction in the platform. You’ll then have to fill a “Buyers Form” mentioning how much you want top spend and share your wallet information. Once that’s done you’ll have to choose your payment option and make your payment. Finally you’ll receive your Bitcoin in the wallet you specified previously. A similar process is needed for selling Bitcoin. Hey we said trading was easy, not fast.
You don’t have to use it just for Bitcoin. Canadian Bitcoins also trades Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and Dash. In their store they sell a handful of interesting stuff. You can buy USB ledgers, physical Denarium coins loaded with Bitcoin and even a novel about Satoshi himself.
Since Canadian Bitcoins is essentially just brokers trying to get a good deal, it’s all done manually, which means long waiting periods.
Supported Countries
Canadian Bitcoins, as its name indicates, only supports Canadians using Canadian currency.
Canadian Bitcoins Rates and Buying Limits
Canadian Bitcoins doesn’t actually trade anything, they’re essentially just brokers acting as a middle man and collecting a fee. That’s why its transaction fee is quite high.
Canadian Bitcoins fee: 8%
The main appeal of Canadian Bitcoins is its simplicity and for that you pay a price. You can also just do one transaction per day. Transactions can take up to 3 days and the price that is chosen isn’t the price of the day when you purchased but the price of the day the transaction was processed. That makes Canadian Bitcoins pretty much useless when trying to ride a wave since prices may change the next day and you can end up losing money.
However it does offer high limit fees. They claim to work with large corporations and government agencies in need of large transactions. All you need to do is contact them with your needs
Canadian Bitcoins Pros
- Lots of payment options: With wire transfer, online transfer, in-person options and even the mail, you definitely have a way to buy Bitcoin.
- Custom attention for large purchases: If you’re looking for someone that can handle large transactions, Canadian Bitcoins will give you personalized treatment.
Canadian Bitcoins Cons
- One daily purchase limit: Since Canadian Bitcoins doesn’t support multiple transactions, users can only make one transaction per day.
- Slow processing times: Transactions can take up to 3 days to process and a week for withdrawals.
- Large fees: Since they’re just brokers you’re essentially paying them on top of whoever they’re using to exchange for you.
Go to Canadian Bitcoins
Is Canadian Bitcoins Good For Bitcoin?
For a platform that has been in service for so long, Canadian Bitcoins definitely comes across as a little bit “scammy”. That doesn’t mean that they are scammers at all, but they certainly look like it. Take a look at their Facebook and Twitter pages. With less than a combined 2500 followers, they definitely haven’t been able to get a proper audience in all those years.
The website seems a bit amateurish and in the page’s messages there’s one from July 12th 2019 that states that they closed their offices early because, and I quote, bad grammar and everything, “its too nice out to be inside. Go enjoy the weather!”. That is real and you can read it yourself in their official website.
Canadian Bitcoins, as we mentioned before, also takes up to three days to process your transaction and the price chosen isn’t the price of the day you purchased but of the day your transaction ended up being processed. In the volatile world of Bitcoin this is a huge disadvantage.
Now does that mean that Canadian Bitcoins is a scam? Definitely not, but it doesn’t really give them the professionalism feel you’d expect of someone handling your money. Add to that the high fees and long processing times and we do believe you can find a better deal elsewhere