Useful Articles / Canada
Canada and crypto perpetuals: why the registered platforms won't offer them
If you are trading from Canada and looking for perpetual futures, the short answer is that the registered platforms do not offer them, and the ones that would are not registered here. That is not two separate facts. It is the same fact stated twice.
The registration requirement
Canada treats many crypto products as securities or derivatives, which means a platform has to register before it can offer them. Registration is handled through the provincial securities regulators and CIRO, and it is not a formality — it brings custody rules, capital requirements, reporting obligations and restrictions on what can be marketed to a retail client.
The practical consequence is that things common elsewhere — margin trading, perpetual futures and options, and high leverage — are usually unavailable or tightly limited on Canadian-registered platforms. Firms that wanted to operate legally in Canada pared those features back rather than take on the obligations that come with them.
A platform willing to give you perpetuals in Canada is, almost by definition, one that hasn't registered to be there.
What the major offshore venues do
The large global exchanges resolved this the other way: they left. Binance withdrew from the Canadian market entirely in May 2023 following changes to the regulatory guidance. Bybit lists Canada among the jurisdictions where its services are not offered. OKX's own risk and compliance disclosure names Canada as a fully restricted jurisdiction.
Kraken stayed and registered, and consequently serves Canadian clients with spot — while its derivatives arm does not cover Canada.
What is actually available
Spot trading is fully open
There is no restriction on buying and holding crypto through a registered platform, funded directly in Canadian dollars rather than routed through a stablecoin. Several platforms are built for the Canadian market rather than adapted to it, which shows in the funding rails: Interac transfers, CAD wires, and withdrawals that land in a Canadian bank without a conversion step.
The practical shortlist for a Canadian resident: Bitbuy and NDAX, both registered domestically and built around CAD funding, or Kraken if you want a larger international venue that stayed and registered rather than leaving.
If leverage was the point rather than the mechanism, it is worth being honest with yourself about which. A large share of retail perpetual volume is people expressing a directional view with more size than their capital allows. Spot with a longer horizon expresses the same view and cannot be liquidated by a wick.
On using a VPN
Canadian residents sometimes reach for one. The risk is concentrated at exactly the wrong moment: platforms verify residency at onboarding and again at withdrawal, and where a mismatch appears the standard terms allow positions to be closed and withdrawals frozen. You would also be outside every protection Canadian registration was designed to give you, with no regulator to escalate to.