New crypto trading services are entering Canada. Is that good for investors?

With bitcoin down about 50 per cent from its highs last fall, now might not seem an opportune time to launch a cryptocurrency product.

But on June 30, digital brokerage Webull Canada announced it would offer cryptocurrency trading after receiving approval from the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. One day later, U.S. brokerage Robinhood Markets Inc., which recently completed the purchase of cryptocurrency platform WonderFi, officially launched its popular trading app in Canada with a focus on crypto.

The companies say the moves, which blur the line between crypto and traditional finance platforms, spring from user demand and will help to drive beneficial disruption in Canada’s financial industry. Investor advocates warn, however, that without restrictions on suitability, the increased availability of crypto trading could expose more Canadians to risks inherent in highly volatile digital assets.

“There’s a fundamental difference between saying that consumers are demanding this and whether it’s actually appropriate for the consumer,” said Jean-Paul Bureaud, executive director of FAIR Canada, an investor-rights advocacy group.

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A push by some digital brokerages to offer more services to their users, including crypto and prediction markets, has led to “highly complicated products” becoming easily accessible to investors for whom they are unsuitable, Mr. Bureaud said.

“That’s the problem we worry about: whether the safeguards need to be rethought.”

The financial incentives for brokerages are clear. Robinhood earned US$901-million in cryptocurrency transaction income in 2025, according to its annual report, a 44-per-cent increase from a year earlier and accounting for more than a third of the company’s transaction-based revenue. In a 2026 proxy statement, Vladimir Tenev, Robinhood’s chair and chief executive officer, said the company planned to “double down” on artificial intelligence and crypto this year.

At the same time, reflecting the volatility of the crypto market, crypto transaction income slumped by 47 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the company’s first-quarter 10-Q filing. Nasdaq-listed Webull Corp., Webull Canada’s parent, does not break out crypto transaction revenue separately in its filings.

“We’re starting with crypto because we think that there’s a lot of enthusiasm in Canada for crypto assets, and then we’ll keep adding on the solution,” Johann Kerbrat, Robinhood’s senior vice-president and general manager of crypto, said in an interview. Robinhood users in other countries can use the app for trading more traditional assets such as stocks, options and exchange-traded funds, but the app in Canada will initially be for crypto only.

“We think customers really benefit from having everything in one application,” Mr. Kerbrat said.

Michael Constantino, CEO of Webull Canada, expressed similar sentiments, calling the addition of crypto a “natural progression” in line with his company’s other recent product introductions, such as round-the-clock trading of U.S. equities. “It is adding more of what our clients want.”

Webull is not the first digital brokerage to cross into cryptocurrencies in Canada. Wealthsimple clients have been able to trade digital assets on the platform since 2020, and Canadians using other brokerages can trade 76 Canadian-listed crypto-asset ETFs with a combined $5.6-billion in assets under management, according to TD Securities data. Direct trading of cryptocurrencies is available through about a dozen Canadian Securities Administrators-authorized crypto broker-dealers.

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Matthew Burgoyne, a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Calgary, said the announcements by Robinhood and Webull are nevertheless significant because they show “crypto trading is being absorbed into the mainstream.”

“I think in five to 10 years, it will be difficult to differentiate between crypto and tradfi,” he said, using a shorthand for traditional finance.

But Mr. Burgoyne expressed concern that what he called Canada’s “very heavily regulated” crypto industry faced a restrictive policy environment that could put the country at a disadvantage. He also said the United States has “leapfrogged” Canada in recent years in crypto market adoption and regulation. The Clarity Act – proposed U.S. legislation that would create a clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies – may force Canadian regulators to revise policies to remain competitive, he said.

Mr. Bureaud at FAIR Canada said he is “not convinced” that the U.S. push toward financial deregulation is in investors’ long-term interests.

“The do-it-yourself investing model assumes agency, assumes investors have the knowledge and the wherewithal to manage and choose their own investment products and build their financial wealth on their own,” he said.

“The evidence clearly shows that many Canadians do not have the knowledge or the experience to do so successfully.”

With a report from Reuters