NDAX was incorporated in Alberta, Canada, at the end of 2017 and launched its operations in 2018. The company’s goal is to democratize access to cryptocurrencies for everyone by making it easy to start investing.
The cryptocurrency platform provides a simple and secure way to trade digital assets and options for institutional investors, as well as avenues to stake cryptocurrency tokens.
Users can appreciate the transparency offered by NDAX in providing important information such as fees, staking requirements, and the registration process.
The NDAX exchange has many features helping the platform stand out among Canadian-based crypto platforms.
NDAX has 37 trading pairs. Except for the BTC/USDC pair, almost all currencies on the exchange are pegged to the Canadian dollar. While the exchange’s trading fees are not excessive, they can add up if you are looking to exchange one cryptocurrency for another. If you only have ETH and want to buy DOT, for instance, you would have to exchange ETH for CAD and then CAD for DOT and pay the trading fee twice.
Professional traders will appreciate having a detailed graph with each trading pair, with various tools and functions available to make price predictions easier.
NDAX staking options are not as extensive as with some other exchanges, but you still have some popular options. The following cryptocurrencies are currently available, along with the staking APY's for each of them:
It is important to note that when you begin staking with NDAX, you are not required to lock up your assets for a set period of time. You can exit your position anytime and have your digital assets at your disposal.
Another benefit our NDAX.io review found is that staking rewards are calculated daily or weekly. ETH and GRT (can only be staked at NDAX in Canada) profits are distributed weekly, whereas DOT, ADA, and MATIC are distributed daily.
NDAX added this staking option in February 2022, and you can set up staking through a web or mobile application. Minimum staking amounts are not overwhelming. For instance, only 0.001 ETH is enough to start staking, which is much more affordable than the 32 ETH you would need to set up a validation node for yourself.
The exchange has a consistent 20% staking commission regardless of the asset type, volume or staking plan, and there are no additional validator fees charged for staking. The APY's for staking here are some of the highest available in Canada as well, and remain stable for selected plans.
Having an NDAX account is also convenient for institutional and large investors. NDAX Wealth is intended for investors who want to invest $200,000 or more while avoiding price slippage.
You can easily arrange a meeting with an NDAX representative and begin investing with the exchange’s personalized service. The following are the main advantages of OTC trading with NDAX:
So far, NDAX has worked with brokerage firms, hedge funds, investment banks, mining farms, merchants, and ATM providers, and it offers same-day order settlements.
When trading cryptocurrency with NDAX, you can deposit Canadian dollars via a free 30-minute Interac e-Transfer, or via a free, one-day wire transfer or bank draft.
Our deposit took 30 minutes to arrive in our NDAX account.
Withdrawing coins depends on the network but takes up to 10 minutes for bitcoin.
We withdrew Canadian dollars from NDAX to our bank account via electronic funds transfer, which takes up to five days to process. There is a $4.99 fee for this and Interac is not available for fiat withdrawals.
Is NDAX safe for Canadians to use? Yes, in fact, NDAX provides some of the best security measures we’ve seen (only BitBuy is more secure). You can view the full list here, but here are some of the stand-out points.
NDAX keeps its digital assets in cold storage using Ledger Vault, although they do not state the percentage. Ledger is a big name in the cryptocurrency space, known for making secure hardware wallets for keeping your crypto safe.
One interesting point that NDAX addresses is how money held in customers’ fiat wallets is protected. NDAX says that its users’ Canadian dollars are held in a segregated Canadian bank account. It means that should anything happen to the exchange, for example, insolvency, then your funds could be located and distributed back to you. No other Canadian crypto exchange that we have reviewed mentions fiat money protection, so this is a big plus for NDAX.
Registered as a Money Service Business with FINTRAC and AMF, NDAX is fully compliant with Canadian regulations. Being compliant is important when choosing a cryptocurrency exchange because otherwise, it could be a scam.
NDAX does ongoing monitoring of its servers and frequent maintenance without interference to prevent malicious attacks.
When signing up for NDAX, you must enable two-factor authentication. There’s no opting out, which is a good thing. It’s a mandatory step that provides the most protection for your account. Most exchanges will give you the option of enabling 2FA, but we think that having it forced on you is actually for your own benefit. The last thing you want is an unauthorized person accessing your account.
Additionally, when you wish to change your details such as your email, address, phone number etc, NDAX requires you to submit a selfie with a handwritten note outlining the request. We think this step, while it may seem annoying to some, is actually the most secure way to handle requests such as these.
NDAX has an iOS app with a 4.6-star rating with 550 reviews. Its Android app has a 4.0-star rating with 80 reviews.
The mobile app is much like its desktop counterpart. The first page you see is the market information.