The Netcoins Blog

Plasma (XPL), PancakeSwap (CAKE) and BNB are three cryptocurrencies now available to buy on Netcoins. Each plays a different role in the crypto ecosystem: a payments-focused blockchain, a decentralized exchange token, and the asset that powers one of the world's largest crypto networks. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. Crypto assets involve significant risks, including price volatility and the risk of loss. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Yes, some projects sell tokens before they list on any exchange, through presales, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) or Initial DEX Offerings (IDOs). These sales happen outside Canada's regulated exchanges, carry a high risk of partial or total loss, and Netcoins does not support, facilitate or endorse the purchase of presale, ICO or IDO tokens. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset, including any presale, ICO, or IDO token. It is not a recommendation to participate in any token sale or to use any particular platform, wallet, or launchpad. Crypto assets involve significant risks, including price volatility and the risk of loss, and presale or unlisted tokens carry substantially greater risk than listed assets. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Canadian small businesses can accept crypto payments in three main ways: a direct wallet transfer using a public address or QR code, a third-party payment gateway that automates checkout and conversion, or a native integration such as USDC through Shopify Payments. Each carries different costs, limitations, and operational requirements. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Crypto assets are volatile and can lose value. Accepting them involves operational, custody, and market risks, and availability of the services described varies by region and changes over time.

Layer 2 networks are secondary protocols built on top of a primary blockchain to process transactions at higher speeds and lower costs. By bundling thousands of off-chain transactions into a single batch and settling it on the main network, a Layer 2 sharply reduces fees while still relying on the base layer for security. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Dollar-cost averaging is a method of buying a fixed dollar amount of an asset at regular intervals, regardless of its price. Spreading purchases over time removes the need to pick an entry point. It does not guarantee gains, reduce the volatility of the asset itself, or protect against losses. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Crypto assets are volatile and can lose substantial or all of their value. Dollar-cost averaging is one of several approaches investors use, and describing it here is not a recommendation to use it or to buy any crypto asset.

XRP is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, an open-source blockchain built for fast, low-cost value transfer. Rather than mining, the network uses a federated consensus model in which trusted validators vote, closing ledgers in roughly three to five seconds. XRP is a volatile asset and can lose value. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. Crypto assets involve significant risks, including price volatility and the risk of loss. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin's value is generally attributed to a combination of digital scarcity, a decentralized network, cryptographic security, and its use as a payment network. None of these features guarantee value or future performance. Bitcoin's price is set entirely by market demand, is highly volatile, and substantial or complete loss is possible. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. Crypto assets involve significant risks, including price volatility and the risk of loss. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Crypto staking is the process of locking digital assets to help secure and validate transactions on a Proof-of-Stake blockchain. In return, participants can earn protocol-generated staking rewards paid in the network's own token, though the value of those rewards moves with the market and is never guaranteed. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice, and it is not a recommendation to stake, buy, sell, or hold any specific cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is highly volatile, and historical or estimated staking yields do not predict future returns. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

The pre-funding problem is the need for banks to park large sums of idle cash in foreign accounts before they can settle international payments. Because traditional banks share no common real-time ledger, they must pre-fund these accounts so money is available the moment a customer requests a cross-border transfer. This article is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice or a recommendation or solicitation to buy, sell, or hold any crypto asset. Crypto assets involve significant risks, including price volatility, liquidity, technology, custody, and regulatory risks, and may result in loss. References to particular crypto assets or technologies are provided for illustrative and educational purposes only.

A crypto bear market is often described as a prolonged decline in cryptocurrency prices, sometimes measured against a drop of 20% or more from recent highs as a general market convention borrowed from equities. There is no single agreed definition. These periods have tended to bring negative sentiment, thinner trading volumes, and reduced leverage. Similar expansion and contraction patterns have occurred before, though future cycles may differ. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, tax, or professional advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any cryptocurrency or to use any particular investment strategy, including dollar-cost averaging. Cryptocurrency is highly volatile and you could lose some or all of the money you put in. Historical market cycles and on-chain indicators described here are descriptive only and do not predict future performance. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Prediction markets are online exchanges where people trade contracts on the outcome of future events, such as inflation readings or interest rate decisions. Each contract is a Yes or No question priced between 0 and 100 that reflects the market's implied probability of that outcome. In Canada, access to these products is limited and regulated. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency or event contracts. Risk warning: Event contracts, also called prediction market contracts, are high-risk derivative products. A contract can expire at zero, which means you can lose the entire amount you paid for it. These products also carry liquidity risk (you may not be able to exit at a fair price), resolution risk (disputes over how an outcome is decided), platform risk, legal and regulatory risk that varies by jurisdiction, operational risk, and behavioural risk, because they can encourage speculative or excessive trading. This article is educational and is not a recommendation to trade these products or to use any platform.

SWIFT moves money by sending secure payment instructions between correspondent banks, a process that can take days to clear and can carry several fees. Stablecoins instead transfer tokenized value over public blockchains, where the on-chain transfer can confirm within seconds. Full end-to-end settlement still depends on separate funding, compliance, conversion, and off-ramp steps, so the total time and cost vary by corridor and provider. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Risk warning: Crypto assets, including stablecoins, are high risk and can lose value, and you could lose some or all of the money involved. A stablecoin is not the same as holding Canadian or US dollars at a bank, and it can lose its peg. Crypto assets are not eligible for coverage by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). Digital currencies and cryptocurrencies are not eligible deposits insured by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC). Registration of a platform as a restricted dealer is not an endorsement and does not guarantee safety. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset.

In 2026, a simple Ethereum transaction has often cost only a few cents in Canadian dollars, though the exact amount changes with network demand and the price of ETH. Gas fees pay validators for the computational work of processing a transaction. They are calculated as the gas used multiplied by the effective gas price (the base fee plus an optional priority tip), all priced in a unit called gwei. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Risk warning: Crypto assets are high risk and highly volatile, and you can lose all of the money you put in. Any network fees or prices shown here are estimates that change constantly. Registration of a platform as a restricted dealer is not an endorsement and does not guarantee safety. Crypto assets are generally not covered by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) or by deposit insurance such as CDIC. Nothing in this article is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is an open financial system built on blockchain technology that operates without traditional intermediaries like banks or brokerages. Using automated software called smart contracts, mostly on the Ethereum network, DeFi lets people lend, borrow, trade, and try to earn yield on digital assets directly from their own cryptocurrency wallets. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Risk warning: Crypto assets are high risk and highly volatile. You can lose some or all of the money you put in. Crypto assets held on trading platforms or used in DeFi are generally not covered by the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) or by deposit insurance such as CDIC. Nothing in this article is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset.

Bitcoin payroll lets an employee convert part of each paycheque into Bitcoin automatically, a workplace option sometimes offered as a financial wellness benefit. Participation is voluntary, contributions are converted on payday using dollar-cost averaging, and the employee owns the Bitcoin directly, held with a custodian or moved to a personal wallet. Employers keep paying in Canadian dollars, and because Bitcoin is volatile, balances can rise or fall. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Digital asset sovereignty is the idea that control over your cryptocurrency, including the private keys and the infrastructure that holds them, should stay under systems you understand and trust rather than distant, opaque ones. In Canada, that increasingly means using domestic platforms and hardware you control, so your digital wealth is not dependent on a foreign entity you cannot reach. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

The Sonic blockchain is a high-speed Layer 1 network that processes over 10,000 transactions per second with sub-second finality. Built as the successor to Fantom, it uses a proof-of-stake design and stays compatible with Ethereum tools, aiming to support fast, low-cost decentralized applications for developers and users. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Disclosure: The Netcoins BIGG Interview Series is produced by Netcoins' parent company, BIGG Digital Assets. Mitchell Demeter is a former President and CEO of Netcoins. SonicStrategy, Sonic Labs, and the Sonic network are separate companies and projects not affiliated with Netcoins. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or crypto asset.

Ripple On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) uses the XRP digital asset as a temporary bridge to settle cross-border payments in seconds. A payment provider converts local fiat into XRP, sends it across the XRP Ledger, and converts it back into the recipient's currency, removing the need for banks to hold pre-funded foreign accounts. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

A standard Bitcoin transaction usually takes between 10 and 60 minutes. The first confirmation happens when a miner includes it in a block, which occurs roughly every 10 minutes on average. Most Canadian platforms wait for three to six confirmations before treating a transfer as settled, which extends the total waiting time to about an hour. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

Stablecoin remittances use digital tokens such as USD Coin (USDC), which are designed to hold a steady value against a currency like the US dollar, to move money across borders. Instead of routing a payment through several correspondent banks, the funds settle on a public blockchain in minutes, often at a lower cost than a traditional bank wire or money transfer. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency.

A fiat on-ramp is a service that converts traditional government-issued currency, such as Canadian dollars, into cryptocurrency. In Canada, this process most commonly uses Interac e-Transfer. Payment processors connect directly to the banking rails, verify the transaction, and credit the user's digital wallet in seconds. This infrastructure is the essential bridge between your bank account and the crypto market. This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, or professional advice. Always do your own research and consult qualified professionals before making decisions related to cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency prices can be highly volatile and investors may lose some or all of their investment. This article is provided for educational purposes only and should not be considered investment, financial, legal, or tax advice.