Buying CryptoCurrency in Canada - My Experience

Some few weeks ago I discovered Jeff Berwick aka Dollar Vigilante and I'm glad I did, he was and still is talking extensively about cryptocurrencies. I always knew that at some point the governments will start rolling out some electronic currencies, just to have a better grip on people's finances and enslave them more efficiently. So, I started looking in acquiring some bitcoin.

After reading about it quite a bit, and after making a wallet I was looking to buy some bitcoin online, and because Mr. Berwick referred to QuadrigaCX as being the best place to buy bitcoin for Canadians, I went to their website right away.

Well, I began going thru formalities to get verified, it took me only minutes to upload the required documents, but then the process on their behalf stalled to a halt. E-mailing back and forth with the company didn't really speed anything up, responses coming from the company were so slow I could watch my beard grow, seriously. I was basically told that due to the fact that many Canadians are purchasing bitcoin lately there is a delay in processing information and I have to be patient because there is not much else that can be done.

After several days of waiting I decided to look for another Canadian exchange and I found "Canadian Bitcoins". Here the verification process took a while as well, but it was completed in about a week, that was with the verification call from the guys at Canadian Bitcoins. At that point I was still waiting to hear from QuadrigaCX. Canadian Bitcoins phone support I have to say is up to par, they do answer the phone right away and seem to be very helpful, so far so good. However after completing the verification process with Canadian Bitcoins, I had discovered that the payment options were quite limited. There was no instant payment options that I could use, no support for PayPal, credit card payment nor interac e-Transfer available, and my bank unfortunately doesn't support Interac Online. So I had to settle for the next fastest payment method that my bank supports, which is direct debit. That takes 5-7 business days to complete. I had to proceed with an additional identity verification step, before that method of payment was enabled, which took an extra day.
Finally I was ready to buy some cryptocurrencies, and so I did on May 19th, several days ago... now waiting, for the coins to appear in my wallet.

The same day I started the buying process with Canadian Bitcoins my QuadrigaCX account was finally verified, but then again I had to do another verification for the payment method, the one available to me is the same as in the case of Canadian Bitcoins company, no credit card option, no PayPal, nothing that works faster with my bank and the minimum set amount is CAD $1000 here.

In the meantime on the 21st of May I decided to further dig online for a place where I could buy using a credit card or PayPal account from Canada. After a bit more searching I found Coinmama. The verification process took only minutes, after uploading the required proof of identification, just to have a higher buy limit, I was ready to purchase in less than 10 minutes, so I bought some bitcoin, to test the waters, and everything went smooth. Then I tried to buy again... but surprise, this time at checkout my card was denied. I called the credit card company/bank to see what is going on. I was transferred from one department to another, and then the customer service rep started to ask a series of questions, each one more irritating than the previous, like what am I buying? why am I buying? etc. To cut it short, in the end my purchase was denied, I was told that I am not allowed to use my credit card to buy bitcoins, unless I buy from a Canadian website.

As I see it, unless the Canadian government can have a record of where you put your money, you are not allowed to decide what you do with them. Your finances are not really yours, when the government needs to have a way of sticking its big nose in. I hope this can serve someone else wanting to buy bitcoin, and if there is some alternative I'd be glad to read about it in the comments.

Obviously the government is afraid of loosing control on its citizen's finances. Because it doesn't have a way of controlling your cryptocurrency effectively the government doesn't see a viable way of robbing you, that is scary indeed, imagine being free of abusive taxes!

Every citizen has the right to protect his/her well being, but those in power do not recognize it as such.

Published: 23 May 2017 by Marius