I just thought I'd put this quick guide / information together, it certainly would have made my life easier when I was starting out and hopefully a fellow canuck can benefit. As Canadians we're lucky that there aren't too many restrictions on what we can do, and Interac e-transfer works really well for funding the various platforms.
Shakepay
This first one's probably quite well known already, super simple interface, good to get your feet wet. There are 'no fees' but there is a spread when buying/selling (for example sell at $76,536, buy at $78,261). Good for smaller amounts. Only BTC & ETH. Free transfers are nice.
If you sign up with a referral, shaking your phone every day while in the app gets you free satoshis, which caps at 1,000 sats ($0.78 per day!) after 200 consecutive shaking days. Sounds really corny but it works.
NDAX
Smaller spread, but there are fees to transfer out. Good for bigger amounts. More coins available.
Newton
Haven't used this one, but heard good things about it.
coinmiles.io
This one's not as well known it seems, allows you to earn cashback in BTC on your online purchases. They have a surprising list of retailers. Just 'activate' in the app/website and shop away (make sure your ad-blocker is turned off). My go-to's are Canadian Tire (2% - just got $10 in BTC for buying new tires!), Home Depot (1%), etc.
crypto.com (CDC)
There's a lot to unpack here. They have the "Earn" program which pays interest weekly on your crypto, the rates vary depending on the coin & if it's locked.
It's the only app I know where you can buy TCAD (stablecoin = $1 CAD), and for no fees to boot - your $50 CAD turns into $50 TCAD. Why would you want to do that? Well you can throw it in "Earn" and get 10% interest on it.
They have a very good "credit card", the benefits depend on the amount of CRO token bought & staked. In my opinion the best value one is the "Jade Green/Indigo", which requires an 'investment' of $5,000 of their CRO coin staked (locked) for 180 days. Benefits for that card include reimbursement of Netflix & Spotify monthly fees in CRO, 3% cashback in CRO for most purchases (there are some exclusions), 10% interest on the CRO staked paid weekly, airport lounge access, and it increases your rate in "Earn". Interest on TCAD increases to 12% for example.
The card is a prepaid which might be a turn-off for some. I load mine using fiat (CAD) to keep my taxes simple.
Of course you can use their app to buy/sell crypto, or use the CDC exchange app for lower fees. They also have a DeFi app, haven't used that one.
Taxes
Of course. The CRA has a guide, and I've linked 2 other reddit threads.
https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinCA/comments/jwmn6h/taxation_2020_incoming_bull_market/
https://np.reddit.com/r/BitcoinCA/comments/nfn8a3/2021_bull_run_tax_update/
Keep track of all your transactions. Selling crypto, exchanging between coins, gifting crypto or spending crypto triggers a taxable event. The last 2 are annoying, but heh. adjustedcostbase.ca can be used for manual calculations.
Things like liquidity pools, decentralized exchanges, DeFi, etc. will greatly complicate your taxes.
ETF's / Stocks
A number of crypto ETF's can be bought on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) they deal mostly (only?) in BTC/ETH, and some of these hold actual BTC/ETH unlike in the US. For example QTBC/QBTC.U owns about 12,800 BTC. Of course, "not your keys, not your coins" and there's a ~2% management fee. Why use ETF's then? Well, simply because they allow crypto to be held in a tax-sheltered account (RRSP, TFSA, RESP).
List of ETF's: https://money.tmx.com/en/stock-list/CRYPTO_FUNDS_LIST
The other alternative is stock in mining companies like HUT, BITF, VOYG.
Mining
Power can be relatively expensive in some parts of Canada, but it may still be worthwhile to put your gaming PC to use. I've been making about $3-4 per day with my gaming laptop (GTX 3060 laptop GPU), the card uses only 75 W so the impact on my power bill is negligible. Remains to be seen how ETH 2.0 will impact mining. I use Nice Hash.
Profitability calculator: https://whattomine.com/gpus
Closing Words
As always, crypto is highly volatile. Don't invest money you can't afford to lose. Watch out for scams.
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