It’s a narrative that also haunts the early technology of Canadian crypto customers to today. Four years prior, Gerald Cotten, co-founder of Canada’s then-largest cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, died beneath mysterious circumstances in India. But, earlier than his passing, Cotten took digital keys for digital wallets and moved them into chilly storage, resulting in the everlasting lack of $190 million in consumer funds.
The incident triggered a disaster of confidence in the nation’s rising crypto sector and made regulators deeply skeptical of blockchain know-how. However, outdated wounds ultimately heal. Fast ahead to right this moment, and Coinsquare has taken over to turn out to be certainly one of Canada’s largest crypto exchanges, with $8 billion in cumulative buying and selling quantity since 2014.
In an interview with Cointelegraph enterprise editor Sam Bourgi, Coinsquare chief operating offic Eric Richmond defined {that a} regulatory framework now exists to forestall related incidents in the future:
“We’ve taken a much different approach than the U.S. Unlike firms south of the border, all crypto trading platforms here need to be registered with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). There is a backlog with processing applications at the moment, while we had ours submitted from back in Nov. 2020 as we wanted to be one of the first regulated players out there.”
As the regulation solely got here into power just lately, all crypto exchanges are given a two-year exemption the place they need to register with the IIROC throughout this era. Currently, Coinsquare is the solely agency in the house that’s IIROCregistered. Similarly, the firm has a strict algorithm in place on the subject of itemizing new tokens to make sure its customers don’t fall sufferer to scams:
“We put it by evaluating the underlying know-how, the advertising and marketing, the group behind it, analyzing potential authorized points, irregular value actions, and many others. We undergo his in-depth evaluation throughout completely different groups, reminiscent of compliance, enterprise, authorized, and safety. It’s about genuinely understanding the token. And if it passes the exams, then the itemizing threshold is ready.”
Canadian regulators have taken a harsh stance on exchanges allegedly not abiding by the new guidelines. In March, Binance ceased operations in the province of Ontario and admitted to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) that it was unregistered there. Similarly, the OSC took enforcement motion in opposition to cryptocurrency exchanges KuCoin and Bybit, claiming a violation of securities legal guidelines.