Available in English and French, Coinsquare.io is a cryptocurrency exchange which currently supports the buying and selling of various cryptos, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, Dogecoin and more. The operation is 100% Canadian built and operated, though the services that it provides are apparently available to a global user-base. The operation is focused on its “Canadian” nature however, and on the multiple funding options as well as the easy verification process it touts. The safety of user funds is another top-priority matter.
Apparently, the exchange is built on the same technology as the New York Stock Exchange. The system is 100% in-house built, and it has been stress-tested under various hypothetical scenarios, such as DDoS attacks. The exchange’s record in this regard is rather impressive as well: since 2015, it has not lost a single coin.
Coinsquare.io Funding Options
Those looking to open a trading account with Coinsquare.io can make use of a multitude of deposit options to get money deposited to this account. Many of these options are only available to Canadians, underlining the Canadian-focused nature of the operation.
 | Were you SCAMMED online? Recover Your Money Now! |
 | Crypto Betting Platform (CFDs) |
 | Best International Crypto Exchange - Buy/Sell BTC & other Cryptocurrencies |
The deposit methods entailing the lowest fees are bank draft and money order. The fees are 0.25% on both of these, while they can be as high as 5% with Interac e-transfer. Interac online, Flexepin vouchers and bank wire are also available. Bank wires carry an 0.5% fee.
For CAD withdrawals, Interac e-transfer, direct bank deposit and wire transfer can be used. The fees incurred upon withdrawal span the 0.5% (in the case of bank wires) to 5% (Interac) range.
Coinsquare Trading Fees
The trading fees offered by Coinsquare are extremely attractive. The Bitmarket fees start from 0.1% for market makers (those providing liquidity) and 0.2% for takers.
The Quicktrade fees run the 0.2% (makers) to 0.4% (takers) range.
How Exactly Does Coinsquare Work?
The operation takes great pride in being extremely straightforward and simple to figure out – even for beginners.
The first step is to register an account. The sign-up process takes but a few seconds, and all it requires from registrants is an email address, which has to be verified. Following the actual account creation, users need to undergo additional verification. They are required to provide a phone number (non-Canadian numbers are apparently accepted too), as well as a number of documents, such as utility bills, bank statements and government-issued IDs.
The funding of the account is the next step. Once money lands in users’ accounts, they can get down to the actual trading. Some have complained that the way some of the limit orders are set up is confusing. Overall though, the community feedback is great in this regard.
| Were you SCAMMED online? Recover Your Money Now! |
| Crypto Betting Platform (CFDs) |
| Best International Crypto Exchange - Buy/Sell BTC & other Cryptocurrencies |
What definitely has to be pointed out about Coinsquare is that above and beyond simply letting users trade various cryptos, it is a full-fledged trading platform, which offers charting features, as well as a customizable trading interface. The QuickTrade trading feature – already mentioned above – lets users trade any coin to any coin easily and quickly.
Should I Trust Coinsquare.io?
Judging by the community feedback available through forums such as bitcointalk and various reddit threads, Coinsquare.io is indeed trustworthy. Obviously, there are user complaints out there, quite a few of them in fact, but there is nothing pointing to fraud on the part of the operator, in any shape or form.
Red Flags and Question Marks
The operation does not raise any such issues. By red flags and question marks, we obviously mean proof of fraud, or some kind of blatantly obvious indication that we are indeed dealing with fraudsters. Coinsquare are not fraudsters, though the quality of the services they offer may fall short of some of their users’ standards here and there.
Complaints
As said above, complaints are indeed plentiful. Reddit is the main scene for Coinsquare detractors and complainers, and while the majority of issues raised through these complaints are indeed legitimate, none of them seem to call into question to legitimacy of the operation.
Some people have complained about the operator holding their money hostage, and the support staff being rude. Withdrawal processing times seem to be way too long in some cases too. At least one user took 7 days to withdraw his CAD, while another was hit with massive withdrawal fees on a BTC withdrawal. Some have suggested that withdrawals should be made in LTC rather than BTC, and the funds should then be converted back to BTC at a different exchange.
Downtimes sometimes struck the site too. In at least one instance, user access was denied to the platform, due to what was later revealed to have been a successfully fended-off DDoS attack.
Other users aren’t shy about pointing out alternatives (such as Quadriga) to the service, due to the withdrawal limits and other inconveniences.
Coinsquare Review Conclusion
Though Coinsquare is indeed legitimate, it seems like many of its operational aspects need further streamlining. The number of complainers is just too big for comfort. Remember though: the operator is transparent regarding most of the issues users complain about. If you plan on trading with Coinsquare, make sure to read the fine-print as well as the not-so-fine print attached to the description of every service.
It also has to be pointed out that Coinsquare have a number of special offers in place for those looking to trade large volumes of cryptos. The Coinsquare Concierge program is aimed at those trading more than $25,000, while Coinsquare Diamond is for users trading over $100,000 at a time. The Diamond feature offers free wire funding and access to a concierge trading desk.
Read other Crypto Exchange reviews.
CoinSquare is probably the worst company you could ever use. Whole host of problems and in my opinion is committing fraud behind the scenes locking certain users out when the price dips.
The first thing I noticed using Coinsquare is the atrocious spread % between buys and sells while the coins value was calculated as confusingly as possible in BTC per CAD, not CAD per BTC. If BTC’s price drops off a cliff the site is unable to be reached, users receive an “error” message in the top left of their screen. Later talking to real people in real life, they had complete access to the site, because they are major holders, so in other words if your account has something like less than $100k-$200k they shut your account down so their “premium” members, employees and CoinSquare themselves can sell before you have the chance to react to a price crash. They call this a “Customer Success Program” .
Other issues are very long wait times for FIAT withdrawals, No ETH deposits, High Fees, Support ticket system that barely works and is hard to locate for some users. Rude customer support and tickets closed without a solution being found (I have experienced this myself), edited support tickets (original question or statement edited to be shorter changing the premise of the ticket), reports of customers having issues proving to the tax man or any other interested party where the FIAT deposit came from as CoinSquare supplies no Invoice, Receipt or Proof of sale. If asked for Proof of sale, the runaround starts, and you will be waiting months at best, the whole while they tell you “soon”. You have no access to visually see if your personal info is correct on the site, such as name, address, phone number, etc, leaving you exposed to potential account hijacking and you would never be able to see.
They have no office where you can visit to confirm they are legit, no phone # to call, just a ticket and email system they can ignore as long as they like, while publicly responding to reviews like this with polite “please contact our support here” as if they are actively caring in solving your issue, but when you do contact them as they offered your response will be “I see you already have an active ticket so you will just have to be patient and wait”. How patient do you think customers will be waiting for weeks to months on end?
I think you can see why CoinSquare has no accessible public office or Phone #…
Hello,
Coinsquare here. We have made multiple updates to our platform and encourage you to check them out. Anytime you have an issue we always recommend filing a ticket or emailing us support@coinsquare.io We love to hear user feedback and try to make changes based of of this feedback.
Thanks,
Coinsquare
I’ve had nothing but great experiences on Coinsquare.
Thanks Stevie,
Glad to hear you are enjoying the platform.
Coinsquare
I was going to buy 300.00 Canadian of litecoin using a credit card. The current price is 152.00 American and a site is showing that is 190.00 Canadian or 1.56 litecoin. Coinsquare is going to give it to me at 216.00 Canadian and 1.36 litecoin. Crazy ripoff. What a spread. Going to convert all my coins to Canadian and withdraw it all.
Thank you for the feedback Cody. Feel free to send any feedback to support@coinsquare.io We always want to hear from our users on how we can improve.
100 % agree, coinsquare is run by scammers. they prey on unsuspecting users. they falsely inflate the spreads to milk all your earnings. Here is a real world example Market rate was at $9870. I go on to buy btc from 2 platforms. coinsquare was trying to charge me $11,135.61 meanwhile, I was buying on another platform for $9879 at the exact same time. In other words they were literally trying to pocket $1256 from one single transaction by falsely inflating the spread by astronomical proportions. I was actually on the other platform watching the buys and sells, and their prices were not even on the board……they were totally lying about the rates, over inflating HUGE. When I email them, they sent me back an absolutely ludicrous excuse.
Thank you for the feedback Cody. Feel free to send any feedback to support@coinsquare.io We always want to hear from our users on how we can improve.
Wanted to use Coinsquare because they are Canadian. Wanted to buy Bitcoins, deposited money trough debit card. Next day I was advised of a phishing attempt and the bank canceled my debit card. Coinsquare compliance team contacted me that they would return my deposit after I submitted various documents. After that I was told my money would be back in my bank account within days, or the next 2 days, or again, etc. The money never showed up. They do not reply to my emails. My advice: do not use Coinsquare.
Hello Joe,
Please email us support@coinsquare.io and we would be happy to look into it.
Thanks,
CS Support
Awful company. Wouldn’t ever deal with them again. Took too long to withdraw funds. Staff unhelpful. Fees excessive. Go elsewhere…
Hello Ivan,
Sorry that you may have had a bad experience. We appreciate the feedback and will look into it.
Thanks,
Coinsquare
This is a disgraceful and scam site that nobody should ever use. I was floored when I read the fees they charge but even worse the terms to withdraw your money. Places like this need to be wiped off the planet, not reviewed and supported. I’m dissapointed that the author leaves out thes crucial info about withdrawing and requirements.. It’s a 7 step process that nobody in their right mind would complete, sending photos of yourself, agreeing to a withdrawal contract and tying your chequeing account to it. No thanks, these all can’t be explained without any good reason, except to put the exchange in full control of your finanaces, now that’s scary because they are not any form of authority with proven track record of honest and good decisions, they can do anything they want with your finances and you agree to it. Their meager contacts appears to be very poorly worded and replied to by lacking social skills. Maybe I found them on a day BTC was down but they appear to scummy and one place to clearly avoid.
Someone asked about the best place to store long term, The answer is offline, there is absolutely no reason to use an exchange if you just want to store.
Hello John,
We are sorry that you did not have a good experience, but we are not a scam. We advertise all of our withholding restrictions on multiple pages on our platform. These polices are in place to help protect our users from fraud. We would love to hear more of your feedback and how you think we can improve. Please feel free to email us support@coinsquare.io
Thanks,
Coinsquare
In my opinion, Coinsquare is really nothing but a scam. I think it extremely unlikely that you will ever see much (if any) of your investment back, especially when their fees are so outrageous.
Hello Matt,
We are sorry that you feel this way. We currently have multiple fee structures in place and some are higher then others. Are trading fees are as low as 0.1% and you can fund your account for as low as 2.5% (digital currency funding is free). We would love to hear more of your feedback on how we can improve support@coinsquare.io
Thanks
Coinsquare
I just made an account with Coinsquare, after reading these reviews I’m deciding to close my account. What’s the best option for Canadians to buy Bit Coin long term?
I recommend Binance.
An exchange based in Hong Kong? You’re joking, right? You will never see a dime of your money.
If you’re simply looking to buy and hold, then coinsquare appears to be the easiest choice for Canadians to deposit money. This seems to be the only exchange that accepts e transfers and i haven’t tried to withdraw any funds yet so can’t give any feedback on that but if you want to make frequent trades or choose other cryptos to buy, then open a poloniex account for that.
“i haven’t tried to withdraw any funds yet so can’t give any feedback on that”
Perhaps you should try to withdraw funds BEFORE you post a positive review of this, or any other such exchange. Sadly, you will find that the vast majority of them will never return you money…just like online casinos. Deposits only, but no withdrawals!
I have never had an issue with CS. I am surprised by all of this.