With the 2018 bear market slowing the excitement in the blockchain industry, it’s easy to miss positive developments. Behind the scenes, many blockchain and crypto projects continue to flourish and grow during a market downturn. Today we will be taking a look at one such player; a fiat to crypto exchange based in Canada called Bitbuy.

5 Years’ Experience In Digital Currency

Crypto is a very young space, even 10 years after Bitcoin was created. Started in 2013 as InstaBT, Bitbuy is one of the older digital currency platforms out there. Although originally only trading on a simplified platform, Bitbuy’s purpose has always been the same – offering a smooth and inexpensive entry point into crypto for Canadian investors.

While trading crypto to crypto can be done for very low fees on a great many exchanges out there, the step from fiat to crypto and vice versa is inevitably much more expensive. In part, this is because banks and payment processors consider crypto high risk and also because it’s difficult for large international exchanges to break into markets such as Canada, due to local banking and regulatory environments.

The end result is that a lot of new investors in crypto end up paying as much as 5-8% on their first purchases. By contrast, Bitbuy offers as low as 0.50% fees for wire transfers, and 0.50-0.75% for trades between fiat and the main coins used to move funds between exchanges. Currently, they offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash and have plans to add XRP in the near term. Withdrawing your coins is free as well. These low fees combined with their fantastic customer service, makes Bitbuy a great choice for a new or experienced Canadian investor.

Expanding the platform

Bitbuy is First Ledger Corporation’s primary product, however, they also offer OTC trading and retai lmerchant solutions, as well as consulting.

For the success of all their different arms, of course, ultimately the key is a strong community of users and reputation. They have the low fees, they have the experience, but they need the name recognition. Currently, they are a top 5 exchange in Canada but have their eyes set on becoming the biggest and most reliable exchange in the country.

To help them with expansion, they have recently introduced a generous referral program, where both the user and the referrer get a $20 bonus with the first deposit.

They also have a blog where they offer solid insights on everything from market conditions to technical matters.

Next up for Bitbuyis Bitbuy Pro – an overhaul and expansion of their trading platform, which is currently accepting requests for early access, with users being rewarded with 0% trading fees during the first 30 days of launch.

We reached out to Bitbuywith a few questions we had about their business, here are their responses:

BR: 2013 is quite old for an exchange in crypto. How do you think the market has changed since then? How do you think it will change in the future?

Bitbuy: Back in 2013, our goal was to create a simple product for users to easily get Bitcoin with Canadian dollars. There were very few options back then, and crypto was a very underground and non-mainstream industry. People saw the potential and wanted to invest, but had very limited options in actually doing so. Since then, we have seen the innovation in the industry skyrocket with advanced exchanges, ICO’s, options trading, and ETF’s. Not to mention all the exciting blockchain innovations that have nothing to do with trading cryptocurrency. People have hundreds of choices in 2019, but we pride ourselves on being a simple and easy choice for beginners and experts.

BR: Can you tell us a little bit about your services other than Bitbuy? Is there much interest for these services, or are traditional institutions skeptical of crypto given the state of the market in 2018?

Bitbuy: We think the biggest opportunity for First Ledger outside of Bitbuy is our Blockchain Markets consulting division. A lot of companies are looking to the future to get their business involved with blockchain tech, and need reliable engineers and talent in order to help them get there. That’s where Blockchain Markets comes in, a company we recently acquired who boasts some of the best Canadian blockchain engineering talent. Blockchain Markets is the team behind Bitbuy Pro, our upcoming state of the art exchange. We believe this is just the beginning of what this team can accomplish in terms of harnessing the blockchain for business innovation.

BR: Can you tell us a little bit about the leadership behind First Ledger Corp and Bitbuy?

Bitbuy: We have a great team with experience from all different industries. Tradtional finance backgrounds, marketing and sales backgrounds, and most importantly – early adopter Blockchain backgrounds. When you put it all together, we feel we have one of the most well-rounded groups of talent in Canada and a team that can push us to fantastic growth moving forward. We also look forward to hiring some great new talent in 2019 as we grow out our different business units.

BR: Why is Bitbuy Pro such a major development for the Canadian space? Aren’t there enough exchanges out there?

Bitbuy: We really believe we have built a best in class product that can propel us to a top Canadian position. Having a low latency trading engine and multiple order types will excite advanced traders, and having the most CAD/Crypto pairs is something that beginners and experts alike will love. We also look forward to having an API so that we can power other technologies in this transformative industry.