Grant Vingoe, chief executive officer of the Ontario Securities Commission, reiterated the regulator’s technology-neutral stance on crypto while saying many Canadians planned to become HODLers in the near future. In a keynote address before the Economic Club of Canada on Oct. 6, Vingoe said the regulatory fundamentals of stocks and bonds were equally applicable to crypto contracts, with the “vast majority of crypto-based entities” falling within the OSC’s jurisdiction. According to the OSC head, the regulator largely considered Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) to be commodities, while “arrangements that trading platforms have with investors" constituted securities. “As securities regulators, none …

Canada’s crypto exchange landscape appears to be consolidating after Coinsquare, one of the largest digital asset trading platforms in the country, acquired CoinSmart for an undisclosed amount. On Thursday, Coinsquare announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to purchase all issued and outstanding shares of CoinSmart’s wholly-owned subsidiary Simply Digital. Once the deal becomes final, CoinSmart will hold a roughly 12% ownership stake in Coinsquare on a pro-forma basis. Shares of the CoinSmart crypto exchange, which trade on the NEO Exchange, were up 67% on Friday, largely in response to the news. The acquisition makes Coinsquare one of …

A self-styled 23-year-old 'Crypto King' is facing a raft of demands among 140 of his investors as they try to claw back a collective total of $35 million from his company AP Private Equity Limited. According to a Sept. 20 CBC report, creditors are hard at work trying to unravel where all the money they allegedly gave Canadian Aiden Pleterski to make crypto and foreign exchange investments on their behalf ended up. A bankruptcy trustee's report, creditors meeting minutes, court filings, and complaints made to Investigation Counsel PC reveal Pleterski owned 11 vehicles, leased four other luxury cars, regularly flew …

Canadian mining firm Hut 8 saw its Bitcoin holdings surpass the 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC) mark as it continues to accumulate self-mined holdings through depressed cryptocurrency market conditions. Hut 8 released its latest mining report for August 2022, increasing its Bitcoin holdings by 375 BTC for the month to take its total reserves to 8,111 BTC. Hut 8 reported that it had mined 12.1 BTC per day at a rate of 125.8 BTC per exahash for the month. While other mining operators have been forced to sell portions of their BTC holdings amid the ongoing cryptocurrency bear market, Hut 8 has …

Bitcoin (BTC) is there for those that need it most; the rest may need time to learn. This message reverberated around the casino conference hall during a panel at Surfin Bitcoin, a Bitcoin-only conference in Biarritz, France, on Aug 26. Panelists Ben Perrin, a Bitcoin Youtuber; Ernesto Hernandez, a Salvadoran business consultant; and Carol from the popular Brazillian Youtube channel “Area Bitcoin” tackled a tricky topic: “Victims of the Banking System around the world: Inflation, Censorship.” The role of Bitcoin in such testing environments was brought into question. The panelists unloaded experience, evidence and anecdotes from their respective countries: Perrin …

The decisions made by companies during bear markets play a pivotal role in determining their longevity in the crypto ecosystem. Representing Canadian Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Sato Technologies, COO Fanny Philip revealed what it takes to survive the bearish loom as the market prepares for the next bull run. Speaking to Cointelegraph during the Surfin’ Bitcoin 2022 event in France about the impact of bear markets on business, Philip said now is the time for mining companies to build and learn. Sato is a digital assets mining company, publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSXV) since Sept. 2021 and …

Canada-based crypto exchanges Bitbuy and Newton are enforcing a $30,000 (CAD) annual “buy limit” for "restricted coins" for their users based in Ontario in order to “protect consumers” amid tightened regulations. Newton, a Toronto-based crypto exchange announced the new changes come after working on getting registered with the Ontario Securities Commission and the securities regulatory authorities in other provinces and territories of Canada, noting in an Aug. 16 post: “These changes are to protect crypto investors, like yourself, and to make sure investors are aware of the risks associated with investing in crypto assets.” Under the new changes, Ontario-based crypto …

According to local news outlet LaPresse on Wednesday, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), an institutional investor chartered with managing retirement assets in Canada's predominantly french speaking province of Quebec, wrote off almost the entirety of its CA$200 million ($154.7 million) investment in troubled cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network. The move came just ten months after the CDPQ and growth equity firm WestCap made a joint investment of $400 million into Celsius at a valuation of $3 billion. At that time, Celsius boasted over 1,000 employees, $25 billion in total assets, and $850 million in cumulative interest paid …

The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), the council of provincial and territorial securities regulators, announced Monday that crypto trading platforms will be expected to provide a preregistration undertaking to their principal regulators as they take steps to comply fully with securities regulation. Two platforms, crypto.com and the Canadian platform Coinsquare Capital Markets, have already filed those undertakings. Trading platforms will be expected to agree in the undertaking to comply with terms and conditions relating to investor protection. Filing the undertaking will allow crypto trading platforms to continue operating during the review of their applications for registration with the CSA. The new …

You might not know it, but Canada is quietly becoming a major player in the blockchain and crypto scene: Ethereum has strong Canadian roots, Toronto-based 3iQ launched North America’s first physically-settled Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) and the percentage of active crypto holders in the country has increased steadily over the past two years. Against this backdrop, I had the pleasure of attending this year’s Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto, where I got to moderate two panels on rebuilding the financial system through Web3 and onboarding the next wave of crypto users. The event served as another reminder that the …

It's a story that still haunts the early generation of Canadian crypto users to this day. Four years prior, Gerald Cotten, co-founder of Canada's then-largest cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, died under mysterious circumstances in India. But, before his passing, Cotten took virtual keys for digital wallets and moved them into cold storage, leading to the permanent loss of $190 million in user funds. The incident triggered a crisis of confidence in the country's emerging crypto sector and made regulators deeply skeptical of blockchain technology. However, old wounds eventually heal. Fast forward to today, and Coinsquare has taken over to become one …

Despite a massive wave of liquidations on the cryptocurrency market, some companies that sold their crypto over the past few months are not bearish on Bitcoin (BTC) at all. Canada-based investment firm Cypherpunk Holdings was one of the companies that opted to sell crypto amid the crypto winter of 2022, liquidating 100% of its Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) by June. One of the first public companies in the world to ever invest in Bitcoin, Cypherpunk said at the time that it maintained its long-term “bullish outlook on crypto” despite selling all its digital coins. One may find Cypherpunk’s crypto liquidation …