Coinsquare Review 2024 | Features, Fees and More (Canada)

Pros

• Simple to use platform for beginners
• No fees for deposits
• Great Coinsquare mobile app
• Licensed and regulated in Canada
• Strong security and encryption
• Great customer support team
• Over 40 different cryptos available to trade
• Partnered with CoinTracker for tax forms

Cons

• Higher trading fees
• Customer support is not 24/7
• The founder has a spotty history
• High withdrawal fees for fiat currency

Rating  

Trade Cryptocurrency with Coinsquare

What is Coinsquare?

Coinsquare is a Canadian crypto exchange that was established in 2014. The company is based in Toronto, Ontario and solely operates its platform in Canada. As of July 2023, more than 500,000 Canadians are using Coinsquare, making it one of the largest crypto exchanges in the country. 

This exchange has some notable stains in what has been a somewhat checkered history. After a major data breach in 2019, several executives stepped down from their positions for wash trading in 2020. 

Coinsquare has been resilient and is the first Canadian crypto exchange to be regulated by the IIROC^[1] or the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. Not only does Coinsquare offer a trading platform for both beginners and advanced traders, but it also licenses its software to allow other businesses to integrate Coinsquare into their sites. 

As of July 2023, Coinsquare has completed a landmark merger in the Canadian crypto industry. Coinsquare, Coinsmart, and WonderFi have merged after receiving approval from Canada’s Competition Bureau. WonderFi also owns Canadian crypto exchanges like Coinberry and Bitbuy. 

In this Coinsquare review article, I will dive deep into using this exchange to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. I will also look at the sign-up process, deposits and withdrawals, and any transaction fees that are required. If you are looking to get serious about cryptocurrencies in Canada, then read on for my honest take on using Coinsquare in 2023.

Coinsquare Review: A Comprehensive Analysis

Ease of Use (4/5)

Fees (3/5)

Cool Features (3/5)

Coin Selection (4/5)

Mobile App (4/5)

Safety Features (4/5)

Customer Support (3/5)

Where Coinsquare Shines

1. Simple to Use Platform for Beginners 

If there is one thing to take away from what Coinsquare does well, it is a simple platform that is perfect for new crypto traders. Let’s be honest: the crypto industry isn’t easy to understand. For those who want to ease their way into crypto trading, Coinsquare is the perfect way to do so. 

What makes Coinsquare so simple? Everything in Coinsquare’s platform is visually crisp and easy to understand. The headings actually say what they are for: Markets, Trade, Deposit, Withdrawals, etc. 

Your home dashboard is simple, yet it provides all of the information you need to know at a glance. This includes your portfolio value, which cryptos you hold in your portfolio, your recent trading activity, and your own customized watchlist. 

Trading on Coinsquare is easy to figure out as well. While the Coinsquare Pro platform is for more advanced traders, beginners can figure out how to buy cryptos with just a couple of clicks:

One thing that would have been nice is a Dark Mode for Coinsquare’s app, but this is such a minor complaint. For those looking for an intuitive way to learn how to trade cryptos, Coinsquare is a great way to do it. 

2. No Fees for Deposits

Another great way that Coinsquare ensures easy onboarding for beginner traders is with no fees for deposits. Whether you use Interac eTransfer or bank wire transfers, you will not be charged for depositing funds to Coinsquare.

This applies to depositing cryptocurrencies from another exchange or wallet as well. The only thing you could potentially be charged is gas fees which are specific to each network. These are unavoidable when sending cryptocurrencies across networks from one wallet to another. 

It should also be noted that Coinsquare does not accept deposits by credit cards in Canada. While this is significant for some users, a majority of Canadian credit cards are unable to process transactions with crypto exchanges. Interac eTransfer is the fastest and easiest way to deposit funds to your Coinsquare account. 

3. Great Mobile App

We are lucky to be in an age where mobile apps are so advanced that they often provide a comparable experience to the desktop app. This is evident with Coinsquare as there is no dropoff in user-friendliness from a computer to your mobile phone. 

In fact, the experience is so seamless that the mobile app looks and feels exactly like the desktop site. Trades and deposits are just as fast and you never feel like the features are confined to a mobile phone screen. This is a testament to the quality of the development of Coinsquare’s mobile app for both iOS and Android.

Every feature from the desktop site is available, including deposits via Interac eTransfer and even chatting directly to customer support during office hours. You can argue that the mobile site is even more secure, too, with 2FA and biometrics that help to confirm your identity. Overall, Coinsquare is one of the best crypto mobile trading apps I’ve used in Canada. 

4. Licensed and Regulated in Canada

As I previously mentioned, Coinsquare is Canada’s first crypto platform that the IIROC fully regulated. This makes Coinsquare Canada’s only IIROC investment dealer and marketplace member. 

IIROC regulations mean that Coinsquare follows the same standards as financial institutions like banks and credit unions. Any cash that is held in Coinsquare user accounts is also insured by the CIPF^[3] or Canadian Investment Protection Fund for up to $1 million per account. 

5. Strong Security and Encryption

If there is one feature that you should look into when choosing a crypto exchange, it should be the site’s security. It is no secret that crypto platforms are often targeted by hackers with malicious intent. Data breaches and account hacks are all too commonplace in the crypto world, and beginners will want to ensure they are well protected. 

Coinsquare has had a bit of a checkered history and has a data breach on its record as recently as November 2022. New users can rest assured knowing that Coinsquare does not lend out their crypto to other institutions and keeps user assets separate from their own. This is one thing that led to the downfall of the major crypto exchange FTX in 2022. 

Coinsquare also holds all user crypto assets in offline cold storage. The cold storage custodians that Coinsquare uses are two of the best in the business: Coinbase Custody and the Tetra Trust Company. In terms of its fiat funds, Coinsquare holds them in a regulated Canadian financial institution that has CPIF deposit insurance for up to $1 million per user account. 

Finally, the security of the site itself uses SSL encryption to protect any private user information. Both the mobile and desktop apps have the ability to use 2FA for a more secure sign-in process. The mobile app also has biometrics like FaceID, which can also increase sign-in security. 

6. Great Customer Support Team

For crypto beginners, it is also crucial to have a strong customer support team. There will undoubtedly be some questions that come up, and it is important to have support whenever you need it. 

Coinsquare offers full support via email or live chat with its team. It also has a Help Section and a blog with answers to most of the usual FAQs. If you can’t find your answer here, you can try reaching out to the team or even chatting with the Coinsquare community on social media. 

The one problem with Coinsquare’s customer support team is that they are only available during office hours.

Here are Coinsquare’s office hours: 

• Monday to Friday: 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST
• Saturday and Sunday: 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST

Why is this an issue? Crypto markets are trading 24/7, and if something comes up in the middle of the evening, you might not hear back from support until the next day. While it is understandable for a smaller company not to have 24/7 customer support, it can be a disadvantage for Coinsquare users. 

7. Over 40 Different Cryptos are Available to Trade

Most new crypto traders will only recognize the major coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum. But when you dive a little deeper, the crypto world is full of different projects to invest in. In fact, there are well over 23,000 different tokens you can buy as of July 2023. 

Coinsquare does not have a wide range of crypto assets to trade, like on Kraken or Binance. But it does offer more than 40 different assets to trade, which is a major improvement from the 15 or so it offered just a couple of years ago. Coinsquare does not offer any staking or earning services on any of its crypto assets. 

Here is a full list of the cryptocurrencies that Coinsuare offers as of July 2023:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH) 
• XRP (XRP)
• Cardano (ADA)
• Aave (AAVE)
• Algorand (ALGO)
• ApeCoin (APE)
• Cosmos (ATOM)
• Avalanche (AVAX)
• Axie Infinity (AXS)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Chiliz (CHZ)
• Compound (COMP)
• Curve Dao (CRV)
• Dai (DAI)
• Dash (DASH)
• Dogecoin (DOGE)
• Polkadot (DOT)
• Enjin Coin (ENJ)
• EOS (EOS)
• Ethereum Classic (ETC) 
• Filecoin (FIL)
• Fantom (FTM)
• The Graph (GRT)
• Internet Computer (ICP)
• Lido Dao (LDO)
• Chainlink (LINK)
• Loopring (LRC)
• LItecoin (LTC)
• Decentraland (MANA)
• Polygon (MATIC)
• Maker (MKR)
• Near Protocol (NEAR)
• Optimism (OP)
• Shiba Inu (SHIB)
• Solana (SOL)
• SushiSwap (SUSHI)
• UniSwap (UNI)
• USD Coin (USDC)
• Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)
• Stellar (XLM)
• Tezos (XTZ)
• Yearn.finance (YFI)

8. Partnered with Cointracker for Crypto Tax Forms

One underappreciated part of investing in cryptocurrencies is including them on your Canadian income taxes. Since the markets are open 24/7, and you can make trades whenever you desire, it can be complicated to calculate your capital gains or losses for the year. 

Coinsquare has partnered with CoinTracker to file taxes easily come tax season. They have even included a 2023 Crypto Tax Guide in the help section to explain everything you need to know about cryptos and taxes in Canada.

The importance of this should not be understated, as the alternative is to calculate all of the gains and losses of your trades yourself. 

With CoinTracker, you get up to 1,000 transactions for free and receive 10% off any plan with a Coinsquare promo code. Note that there is a cost once you have used up those 1,000 transactions when filing your crypto taxes with CoinTracker. 

Where Coinsquare Falls Short

1. Higher Trading Fees

Coinsquare’s trading fees depend on whether you are using the basic platform or the Coinsquare Pro platform. For regular crypto traders on Coinsquare Trade, the fees are based on a spread rate which allows them to eliminate trading fees. The result is that you could potentially end up paying more than with a set fee system.

Regarding Coinsquare Pro, the platform uses a maker/taker system.

For the Pro platform, it is based on your trading volume over the previous 30 days. The more you trade, the lower the trading fees will be. For the lowest trading volume tier, you can expect to pay 0.50% in fees for each trade. 

2. Customer Support is not 24/7

Like many Canadian-based crypto exchanges, customer support for Coinsquare is not available 24 hours per day. While there are customer service agents available seven days per week, the hours of availability are limited. 

As I mentioned earlier, the customer support for Coinsquare is only available from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST from Monday to Friday and 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST on the weekend. This can be a problem for users in the Pacific Standard Timezone because support ends at 4:00 PM PST and 2:00 PM PST on weekends. 

Coinsquare offers plenty of ways to get in touch with customer support, but for those who enjoy trading at night, you can’t expect someone to be around to help you. The customer support itself is great, but the hours leave something to be desired. 

3. The Founder Has a Spotty History 

When you use a product, especially a financial one, you want to be sure that the founders and executives have a sparkling history. In July 2020, one of Coinsquare’s founders, Virgile Rostand and the then CEO Cole Diamond were charged by the Ontario Securities Commission for wash trading. 

For nearly one and a half years, 90% of Coinsquare’s trading volume was founded to be fraudulent. Even after Coinsquare employees pointed out the irregular trading volume, management kept it quiet and even fired one whistleblower. 

Diamond and Rostand both resigned from their positions and paid nearly $2 million in fines. While they are no longer involved with Coinsquare, the ordeal certainly tarnished the company’s reputation. It just goes to show that the crypto industry is still far from being a regulated space and that fraud still plays a major role on these crypto exchanges. 

4. High Withdrawal Fees for Fiat Funds 

I already talked about Coinsquare not charging any fees for deposits. Well, on the other side of the coin is that it has relatively high withdrawal fees for fiat funds. The easiest way around these fees is to use Interac Transfer, which has no withdrawal fees. You are limited to just one Interac eTransfer withdrawal every 24 hours for a maximum of $2,000. 

As you can see, direct bank deposits and wire transfers have a much higher withdrawal amount maximum. But you are also charged 1.5% in fees, and it could take up to three business days to receive your withdrawal. 

Who Should Use Coinsquare

If you’re still contemplating whether Coinsquare is the right crypto platform for you, consider the following:

You should use Coinsquare if…

Coinsquare might not be for you if…

My Experience with Coinsquare

Before I get into my experience with Coinsquare, I’ll be honest: before writing this review, I had never used the platform. As you can see from the images, I loaded in about $100 so that I could really see how Coinsquare works. With other reviews, it is easy to tell who has actually used the platform and who hasn’t. 

For those expecting Coinsquare to be the Canadian version of Binance or Kraken, you might be disappointed. Both of these names are global crypto exchanges that have tens of millions of users around the world. Coinsquare has over 500,000 users across Canada, but in terms of competing with these crypto behemoths, it is always going to fall a bit short. 

As far as Canadian crypto exchanges go, it is more on pace with what Wealthsimple Crypto or Coinsmart offers. It has a decent selection of cryptos, an area that Coinsquare has really tried to improve over the past couple of years. 

Like other crypto exchanges, Coinsquare has implemented a tiered trading platform. This means that for beginners, there is the basic Coinsquare Trade option, while advanced traders can use Coinsquare Pro. There will also be a lot of graduation within the same app, which is a savvy move by Coinsquare to retain its existing users. 

In terms of usability, Coinsquare has a very smooth interface and very clear labels. This is especially important for new crypto investors who might not be familiar with the lingo yet. Overall, I found the app on both the desktop and mobile phone easy to use and a delightful experience for trading cryptos. 

Two other things I look for when I use a crypto exchange are customer support and site security. For the most part, the site’s security felt safe, with 2FA and biometrics for logging in. Coinsquare holds all cryptos in cold storage and all fiat currencies in a regulated Canadian bank. I always had the recent data breach on the back of my mind, but Coinsquare felt safe and secure to use. 

I’ve covered customer support at Coinsquare extensively already, so you should know my thoughts. Overall, the customer support is great, with multiple avenues to receive help from Coinsquare’s staff. The office hours are limiting, especially when you live on the west coast of Canada, but a Canadian exchange really has no need for a full support staff outside of Canadian business hours. I understand that, but it has the potential to be inconvenient for some users. 

Coinsquare is a nice way to ease yourself into the crypto industry in Canada. Is it the best crypto exchange I’ve used? Definitely not. While the app itself is pleasant and intuitive, there isn’t much that sets Coinsquare apart for me.

There are also some glaring omissions, like a lack of staking or earning and limited deposit methods. They aren’t dealbreakers, but considering many of its Canadian competitors offer this, there is little reason to use Coinsquare over Wealthsimple Crypto or Kraken.

How to Sign Up for a Coinsquare Account

Estimated time: 10-20 minutes 

1. Register for an Account at Coinsquare.com

Registering for an account with Coinsquare is simple and straightforward. Head over to the site and click Get Started to enter your email and begin the process:

Coinsquare will then send you a code to confirm that the email you entered is yours. 

Once confirmed, you will be asked a series of questions about your identity. I should point out that you will need to enter quite a bit of your information in accordance with Canadian KYC or Know Your Customer laws. 

Like your phone number, which will lead to Coinsquare sending another confirmation code by SMS to your mobile phone. 

This leads to some more identify verification questions:

You will need to provide a form of government-issued identification as well. This is done through a third-party site called OnFido. You will be taken to the OnFido site, where you will upload your identity documents and a video of yourself.

OnFido will provide you with a QR Code to scan which will bring you to the new secure site. 

On the OnFido site, you can upload photos of your personal identification document. You will also then be asked to film yourself in a 30-second video that requires you to follow some on-screen instructions. Once completed, submit the video through the OnVideo site on your mobile phone. 

Coinsquare will then require some more information, including your residential address and your current occupation. 

2. Complete Submission of Your Personal Information

Once you have finally entered all of your information, Coinsquare will review your submission. 

Occasionally, Coinsquare will need to review your submission manually. This could be due to unclear photos of your identity documents or clarity in your submitted video. 

Even though I had to get my submission manually reviewed by Coinsquare, it only took a few moments to clear it up. 

3. Login and Fund Your Account

Once confirmed, you can log in and fund your account.  It’s easiest to use Interac eTransfer if you plan on adding fiat funds first. 

As with everything else on the Coinsquare platform, the instructions are very clear and easy to understand. 

4. Start Trading on Coinsquare!

If you are dipping your toes into crypto trading, I recommend using the basic Coinsquare Trade first. Trading is easy to understand, and you don’t have to worry about using limits or technical analysis to make precise trades. 

FAQs About Coinsquare