In other articles on this site we’ve mentioned that you can buy Bitcoin or Ethereum through the Canadian company Wealthsimple, and in this article we’re going to do an in depth review of one of Wealthsimple’s products – Wealthsimple Crypto.
Wealthsimple was founded in 2014 in Toronto and is the most popular Canadian robo advisor. This concept already existed in the United States with companies like Wealthfront helping offering to manage money for normal people for a small fee. However, Wealthsimple was the first company to do something similar in Canada.
It currently has over $8.4B in assets under management, has raised over $750M and is known throughout Canada as both a reputable company and trendy startup. In the past we’ve used Wealthsimple for high interest savings accounts as well as managing our investment portfolios.
In 2020 Wealthsimple launched a Crypto product that allowed you to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum. In 2021 they launched a ton of additional tokens you can buy, bringing the selection close to that of Coinbase.
You can now buy coins and DeFi tokens including:
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Litecoin (LTC)
Dogecoin
Basic Attention Token (BAT)
Aave (AAVE)
Balancer
Chainlink
Compound
Survye
Kyber Network
Maker
Synthetix
Uniswap (UNI)
Yearn.finance
It’s really simple to put money into any of these as an investment on Wealthsimple, but it’s worth noting that when you buy crypto on Wealthsimple you don’t actually get a wallet address. You’re buying these assets as if you were buying a stock. You don’t have a crypto wallet, but rather hold a certain amount under Wealthsimple’s management.
If the price of one of your coins / tokens goes up you can liquidate / sell it of course, but you can’t send any of your coins / tokens to another address. This may be fine if you just want to hold the asset if in case it appreciates, but if you want to use DeFi tokens for their actual purposes like lending, etc. you can’t do anything with them.
We really like how easy it is to fund your account, and to use Wealthsimple in general. You have between $250 CAD to $1000 CAD in an instant funding for your account and the app is really user friendly and well designed.
How To Buy Crypto With Wealthsimple
If you’ve already signed up for a Wealthsimple Crypto account complete the 2-factor verification process and login. If you’re on a computer, click on the Trade & Crypto option. Then click Add Funds twice. There’s an instant deposit limit that ranges from $250 CAD to $1000 CAD depending on our account history.
Final Verdict
Wealthsimple is great for trading stocks and ETFs with low fees, and also for a hands off approach to investing with their managed services. However, holding crypto in Wealthsimple is really only the right move if you’re OK with not having an actual crypto wallet (you can’t send the crypto to another wallet address to use it).