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Netcoins was founded in Vancouver in 2014 as a virtual bitcoin ATM company. It went public on the CSE in 2018 before being acquired by Blockchain Intelligence Group (BIGG:CSE) in 2019. After the acquisition they pivoted to building a “cryptocurrency” exchange. They hired my good friend and long-time bitcoiner Mitchell Demeter to build the business. Mitch moved on in 2021 and Fraser Mathews took over as President of Netcoins.  He’s got a long background in software and traditional financial services.

Netcoins allows you to buy and sell bitcoin. They offer limit and market orders.

They’ve got a mobile app and a prepaid credit card which can be loaded with fiat or bitcoin.

Word from the CEO

Getting started

Netcoins is a fully custodial exchange.

As a BCSC registered custodial exchange, they are required to collect some information on your financial and technical fitness before verifying your account.
Do you feel safer now that The Government is here to help?

Verification happens through a UK based company called Sumsub. It was a little slow. My passport didn’t work after 3 tries but my driver’s license did after about an hour.

Presumably this means your personal data is stored in the UK?

Buying Bitcoin

My Interac deposit took 2 minutes. There’s a 0.5% trading fee and 0.0005 BTC withdrawal fee.
This can make Netcoins very expensive for small purchases.
In fact, at the time of writing this, they were the most expensive place to buy bitcoin in Canada on cspread.ca for transactions under $750.
As transaction sizes get bigger, Netcoins becomes more competitive. They were the second cheapest place to buy $10,000 worth of bitcoin in Canada.

Mobile App

The app has a biometric login feature.
It’s pushing me very hard to turn on notifications

I wouldn’t recommend this, it will send you some spammy crypto shit from time to time.

It also prompts me to set up 2FA immediately.

OTC

What do they do for OTC?

Other features

Netcoins pay is a prepaid credit card issued in partnership with KOHO Financial. You earn 1% back in bitcoin for purchases made on the card
CAD funds in your Netcoins account are spendable automatically. BTC is not spendable.

This was really seamless. I had a working virtual card in my wallet in a couple minutes. This is the best thing about Netcoins.

Casino Coins

Netcoins offers 30 altcoins.

Why does this matter if I only intend to buy bitcoin?

Privacy and Security

Netcoins recently had a major data breach. They’ve contacted all affected users and offered them some identity theft protection services.
They’ve been very transparent about the breach.
You can see another thread about the incident here.

They’ve had funds stolen recently but customer funds were safe. This points to a proper segregation of funds but doesn’t mean the risk of holding your funds here is zero.

They use Bitgo for cold storage and run their own Fireblocks implementation as their hot wallet. These funds in their hot wallet are insured by Coincover.

They do not mix their bitcoin?

They use their own proprietary blockchain analysis tool called QLUE.

DCA

No DCA. It’s on the roadmap

Support

Canadian phone and email support.

2FA

Google Auth

Layer 2

They don’t support Lightning, Liquid or any other Layer 2 technology.
Lightning is on the roadmap. They’re currently running Lightning nodes through LQWD

They have Lightning nodes with LQWD. 

Email

I’m getting a few emails a week from Netcoins.
Lots of reminders to set up 2FA.
Unsubscribing from the single list is easy.

Referrals

Get rewarded $25 when users sign up with your unique link or code below and purchase $50 worth of crypto.

Regulated

Netcoins is registered as an MSB with FINTRAC. They are also fully regulated and registered with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) and BCSC.