
Selling Bitcoins in Cana­da - gvb
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/12/19/How-To-Sell-Bitcoin-in-Canada
======
maxander
The brilliant thing is, if the author controls the host server of this article
and it gets near the top of Google results for its title, watching the article
hit-rate [1] should be a neat way of predicting the inevitable bitcoin crash!
Probably several hours in advance. He could market out this service for Big
Bucks.

[1] After the article stops being front-page-HN'd, at least.

~~~
modeless
You don't need to own a top search listing for this. Google Trends shows the
popularity of any search term in real time.
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-H&q=Se...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-H&q=Sell%20bitcoin)

~~~
jondubois
More interesting
[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-H&q=Se...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%201-H&q=Sell%20bitcoin,Buy%20bitcoin)

~~~
tehlike
Is it? Someone who bought one probably knows how to sell in the same platform,
no?

~~~
PeterisP
Not really, because (as the OP states) there are many places that will sell
you BTC but _not_ really allow you to get cash back out, e.g. because of your
location.

------
hanklazard
Bray mentions Ripple as a better crypto to buy because it has an application
(ie ledger for enterprise banking and other financial institutions).

I disagree for two reasons: 1\. I’ve become convinced that the crypto
currencies with applications (ether, xrp, and others) are actually riskier
than the simple store of value coins like BTC. If, for example, dapps don’t
really take off in popularity and the “application” of the crypto currency
fails, I would expect that would tank the value of that currency. BTC or LTC,
which seem more like simple store of value coins at this point, would appear
to have less of this type of associated risk. 2\. Ripple (XRP) in particular
seems doomed to me. I do not believe that any major financial institution
would use a public blockchain and associated currency. If they need / want to
use blockchain, there are non-public options that would better serve banks,
some being developed by the hyperledger group and others.

~~~
eberkund
Just a note that Ripple and Mt. Gox founder Jed McCaleb left the Ripple
project to form Stellar Lumens which is technologically superior and I expect
XLM to surpass XRP in the "cheap transactions and marketable to banks" space.

~~~
hanklazard
Interesting, I’ll check it out.

My question remains though, and here it is in another form: is there a
compelling reason for banks to use a public blockchain rather than just use
their own private network? I can’t figure out why they would use a cryptocoin-
incentivized public blockchain, but maybe I just haven’t thought about it
enough. Anyone have a good answer to this?

~~~
Jenya_
There is a nice speculative article about Jed McCaleb which may or may not be
true, still interesting nonetheless: [https://steemit.com/ripple/@olyup/fck-
you-money-the-rise-and...](https://steemit.com/ripple/@olyup/fck-you-money-
the-rise-and-fall-of-xrp)

------
jonathannorris
For those Canadians out there, I've had a decent experience with:
[https://www.quadrigacx.com](https://www.quadrigacx.com), and I believe it's
the biggest CAD exchange.

~~~
badloginagain
I started with CoinBase, not realizing that there wasn't a sell option in
Canada. Ive moved to quadrigacx and it's worked well. 0.1BTC transactions are
not a problem- I've seen sell orders on scale of 100BTC, so I'm not sure what
CoinSquare is about with their limits here. It has several methods to
sell/withdraw money to banks, with various fees and wait times.

The big thing for Canadians is on the taxation side. Trade on any digital
currency is subject to capital gains- meaning they apply your tax bracket to
half your profit.

If you trade digital currency for goods/services (ie. Use BTC as a currency),
its considered barter trade. You get taxed on the converted dollar value of
the transaction.

It appears Quadrigacx does not do any reporting to the CRA for your
transactions, so of course all this would be self-reported at tax time.

~~~
krrrh
Capital gains is an issue for Canadians (and Americans) regardless of what
exchange they use. Not reporting sources of income is tax evasion.

It’s amazing to me how frequently discussions of bitcoin profits are mixed
with a casual attitude towards committing a major felony. A lot of people made
a lot of money this year doing very little work. Be happy you live in a
society where this is possible. Pay your taxes.

EDIT: And for everyone worried about a crash in 2018 resulting in a big 2017
tax bill that can’t be paid, a reminder that you can carry losses _backwards_
in Canada for up to 3 years and get those taxes refunded.

------
hartator
On a side note, I am trying to sell my very little stack of LTC - 7.04 - for
like a week or 2. Gdax never works - the ID validation is always down - and I
haven't found any other solutions. Any ideas?

Cryptos are not liquid at all.

~~~
Geee
Id verification has nothing to do with liquidity. You should get verified
before you get into it. GDAX volume for Litecoin/USD was $300M today. If
that's not enough you can exchange for BTC and then for USD.

~~~
ufo
Trade volume isn't the same as liquidity either.

~~~
hisabness
How do you distinguish the two in your head, just asking?

------
guiomie
'You can bet that if (I mean when) Bit­coin de­flates, the loss is go­ing to
be most­ly soaked up by the peo­ple who’ve bought in re­cent­ly, the 95%-plus
of hold­ers who col­lec­tive­ly own less than 5% of BTC.' ... Can someone help
me understand this? How can the 5% buy back 95% of the bitcoin if the 95%
tries to cash out? The 95% can't cash out no?

~~~
cowsandmilk
I think what the article is saying is that 5% that own 95% didn't buy in at
inflated prices. Those who own just 5% of bitcoins likely bought high, so they
will be in the red on a crash. Those with more coinage tend to have bought low
and will still be in the black if the market crashes.

E.g. the Winklevoss twins bought 120,000 bitcoins at $10. If the market
crashes to $1,010 from today's $16-17,000, they'll still be in the black by
$120MM. Sure, on paper they'll have lost a billion dollars, but they're still
not hurting.

------
sbierwagen
"Im­por­tant note: This nar­ra­tive ap­plies specif­i­cal­ly to ex­chang­ing
BTC for Cana­di­an dol­lars, in Cana­da. Some lessons may ap­ply in oth­er
ju­ris­dic­tion­s."

~~~
sunwooz
The more interesting part of the post is in the 'Why I did it' section. I'd be
interested to hear what others have to say on the topic considering I was
about to invest some money into cryptos.

~~~
defen
I think a healthy step 0 for anyone is to get into the mindset that you're not
"investing" into cryptos, you're speculating or gambling.

~~~
jonny_eh
Absolutely true, but that's also the case of most stock trading. If you're not
buying a stock expecting dividends, but instead hoping to just sell it for
more later, that's not much different than speculating on BTC.

~~~
tw04
That's not even remotely true. Stocks are directly tied to the performance of
a company providing goods or services. There's something you can directly
gauge.

At BEST you could equate it to currency trading, but even THAT is tied to
real-world governments and their policies nine times out of ten. Bitcoin is
literally trading on the belief that a bunch of people are going to switch to
it instead of the dollar or _insert your currency of choice_ because...?

~~~
mthoms
> That's not even remotely true. Stocks are directly tied to the performance
> of a company providing goods or services. There's something you can directly
> gauge.

I'm no stock expert but isn't the majority of a stock's value due to
speculation on what it will be worth _one day in the future_?

I think the parent made a valid point. Sure, stocks are generally easier to
"gauge" (and therefore lower risk) but you're still just speculating that it's
future price will be greater than it's current price after all.

Low-risk gambling is still gambling isn't it?

~~~
AlexandrB
> I'm no stock expert but isn't the majority of a stock's value due to
> speculation on what it will be worth one day in the future?

That's true, but stock can represent a portion of an asset with production
potential. A factory or a mine or a dot-com. Bitcoin is pure fiat money.

If I owned all stock in AAPL, I would own one of the most valuable companies
in the world which would yield me several billion USD in profits every year.
If I owned all bitcoins my asset would be completely worthless because there
would be no market for it.

I defer to Warren Buffett's quote [1] on Gold - an asset similar in it's
uselessness:

> Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this
> gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side.
> (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per
> ounce -- gold's price as I write this -- its value would be $9.6 trillion.
> Call this cube pile A.

> Let's now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy
> all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion
> annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, one
> earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would
> have about $1 trillion left over for walking-aroundmoney (no sense feeling
> strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6
> trillion selecting pile A over pile B?

[1] [http://www.nasdaq.com/article/why-warren-buffett-hates-
gold-...](http://www.nasdaq.com/article/why-warren-buffett-hates-gold-
cm267928)

~~~
mthoms
>If I owned all bitcoins my asset would be completely worthless because there
would be no market for it.

Of course, but you could say the same about having the entire internet to
yourself. Or being the only person on Facebook. That's just a function of how
networks work.

~~~
comex
But he could _own_ all of Facebook without making it worthless.

------
joecool1029
American, but I used to FX in Canada using Bitcoin when it actually worked as
a currency (like 2013/2014). At the time it was cheaper than dealing with bank
rates or merchants that would be lame and only take USD at par.

I'd trade with a few people I met first on the OTC trading channel, then did
initial small trades in person. Once enough trust was built up they'd just
send me interac e-transfers for my coin. I had a Canadian bank account to
receive it.

Nobody would trust randos online to send interac since it could be reversed.
But the OTC web of trust worked well back then and I never got burned (unlike
with centralized exchanges)

------
uptown
Is there a consensus regarding trusting these exchanges with scans of
verification documents? Bitstamp is asking for scans of a drivers license or
passport to verify the account and proceed with transactions.

~~~
bpicolo
It's 100% necessary for money-laundering prevention. I'd be way more concerned
using an exchange that doesn't do it.

~~~
uptown
Basically, the KYC regulations?

~~~
user5994461
Yes, KYC = know your customer, you gotta check the identity of your customers.

------
RileyJames
I’m a little shocked it costs $20 ($10 to send and $10 to receive, and I’m
unclear why the receiver seems to cop both fees) to send $2000 from a Canadian
bank, to another Canadian bank. That seems absurd. I don’t recall ever being
charged for a domestic bank transfer in Australia (I believe the fee is 50c
but a free quota is received each month).

------
EGreg
That may explain a lot of the growth in the Bitcoin and crypto ecosystem
market cap:

Being unable to cash out as easily as cashing in!

------
bufferoverflow
You can use almost any exchange in the world, and then send the fiat in
foreign currency into your bank account. Your bank will happily convert to
CAD, taking ~3% on a bad conversion rate. Just call your bank prior, make sure
they accept USD or EUR or whatever currency you chose.

------
ringaroundthetx
With bitcoin I've never had the same preferred cash-in/cash-out service for
more than 6 months.

They all inevitably shoot themselves in the foot, one way or the other.

------
gchokov
Bitcoin options? Can you trade such somewhere? Using options is the only
proper way to short bitcoin right now. But I was not aware of their existence.

------
arisAlexis
Such drama for something people are doing for years

------
gormo2
FUDing BTC and shilling Ripple? Why the *heck is this #5 on the front of HN?
Come on.

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? You've done it
quite a bit and we eventually ban accounts that do that.

If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't,
please don't comment until you do.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

