Coinsquare offers a robust cryptocurrency trading platform for its users. The key to Coinsquare’s success and what makes it a good exchange is that it understands its users. By offering a separate platform in the Coinsquare quick trade app, Coinsquare can tailor its services on the main exchange for larger volume and experienced traders.
The exchange’s proprietary technology, security protocols, and recommitment to being compliant with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and OSC have enabled them to endure the fraudulent practices of previous management.
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Coinsquare is a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2014 and based out of Toronto, ON. The company has developed 2 different platforms for traders: A quick trade app for new and smaller investors to take advantage of, and an advanced trading version for experienced traders. Unfortunately, the 2 versions are not compatible with each other so this review will only be focused on the main Coinsquare exchange.
The exchange experienced periods of turbulence similar to other exchanges. The CEO, founder, and CCO all stepped down in 2020 after allegations by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) of them instigating large volume wash trading. Coinsquare also suffered a data breach in 2019.
Despite these setbacks, Coinsquare has between 600,000 and 700,000 retail clients, and franchises its software. By licensing the Coinsquare software, the exchange can incorporate its API into other businesses’ applications and introduce more first-time users to the cryptocurrency industry.
Coinsquare supports over 14 cryptocurrencies, but some notable assets are missing. Namely, Binance USD, BNB and LEO Token, which are in the top 20 cryptos by market cap. In total, 15 of the top 20 cryptos are available on Coinsquare.
Popular assets on CoinsquareCoinsquare has 0% fees for deposits on both fiat (CAD) and cryptocurrencies. Withdrawals do carry varying fees and minimums on both fiat and cryptocurrencies.
There are 2 options for depositing in CAD: Interac e-Transfers and wire transfers.
Deposit methods| Transaction type | Fee |
|---|---|
| Deposit funds | Interac e-Transfer request: 0% Wire transfer: 0% Cryptocurrency: 0% |
| Withdraw funds | Interac e-Transfer request: 0% Wire transfer: 1.5% Direct Bank Deposit: 1.5% Cryptocurrency: Varies |
| Type | Fee |
|---|---|
| Maker | 0.05% – 0.50% |
| Taker | 0.14% – 0.50% |
Maker fee explained. A maker fee is the fee charged when you propose an order for other traders to take. In other words, this fee is charged when you place a limit order to sell an asset, but that order is not filled immediately.
Taker fee explained. A taker fee is a fee charged when a buy order is matched immediately with a sell order on the books. This is the fee charged when you place a market buy order.
Coinsquare offers a mobile app for access to its exchange services on the go. Download the Coinsquare mobile app from the Google Play store or the App Store and trade on the go. The app has all of the same features as the online platform.
Coinsquare claims to be one of the most secure crypto exchanges in Canada. It runs on Coinsquare’s proprietary technology which is SSL and 2FA enabled. The exchange also has a 95% cold storage policy on all its cryptocurrencies and the whole system has been both stress and DDoS tested. Despite these security protocols, there was a hack in 2019 that resulted in users’ personal information being stolen.
In 2020, the OSC (Ontario Securities Commission) filed a statement of allegations against Coinsquare’s CEO Cole Diamond, founder Virgile Rostand and CCO Felix Mazer for manipulating trading volumes. In a practice known as wash trading, the OSC alleged that Coinsquare had performed 840,000 wash trades for around 590,000 BTC between 2018 and 2019. All 3 executives stepped down fromtheir positions and were banned from being involved with Coinsquare for between 1 and 3 years.
Past hacks. In November 2019, Coinsquare was successfully hacked and 5,000 users’ personal information was stolen. It was later confirmed that the hack was committed by a former employee who was able to access the company’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. The employee then went on to sell the stolen information to a group of hackers. The hackers later announced they would use this personal information to conduct SIM swapping attacks on users of the exchange. Coinsquare immediately notified law enforcement and data protection offices when it learned of the attack. Since the attack, Coinsquare has added additional levels of security to the CRM and data management protocols.
Security audits. The CRA issued new compliance regulations in 2021 for exchanges to abide by. Coinsquare used FutureVault as its platform to deliver its clients transactional statements for these new regulations.
Insurance. Unfortunately, Coinsquare is not a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). If the company becomes insolvent, then users’ investments are not insured.
Coinsquare has several options for resolving issues. For most issues that users are having, the answer can be found on the FAQ help page.
If the issue is not listed on Coinsquare’s help page, users can either go through the live chat or email customer support directly.
Unfortunately, the support team for Coinsquare is only available Monday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm EST. If a user has an issue outside of these times, they will need to wait until the next day to talk to a representative.
| Google Play ratings | 4.3 stars, 50K+ downloads |
| Apple Store ratings | 4.6 stars, 4.5K ratings |
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