Your Canadian Coinbase Account Earns Less Than the US One — Here’s Why
Coinbase's new Canada CEO says outdated, exemption-based rules are why Canadians get smaller stablecoin yields and no crypto derivatives yet.
If you hold crypto on Coinbase in Canada, you’re already earning less than your American counterparts — and it’s not because of your account, it’s because of the rulebook. Canadian users currently earn up to 4.5% APY for holding USDC on the exchange, while US customers on Coinbase’s paid “Coinbase One” tier can access a stablecoin lending product paying roughly 7%. That gap is a symptom of a bigger problem, according to Coinbase Canada’s newly appointed CEO, Eric Richmond.
Speaking to CoinDesk at the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto, Richmond said Coinbase wants Canadians to eventually get the same lineup of products Americans already use, including crypto derivatives, decentralized finance tools and tokenized assets. But he argues Canada’s regulators need to build permanent, purpose-made crypto legislation instead of relying on temporary carve-outs.
What “everything exchange” actually means for you
Richmond described Coinbase’s ambition bluntly: “We want to have all your financial services in one place… We want to be that everything exchange… underpinned by this technology, where it’s 24/7, seamless, frictionless.” In practice, that means one app for spot trading, futures, lending and tokenized real-world assets — rather than juggling several platforms.
For everyday holders, the appeal is obvious: fewer apps, potentially better yields, and access to products currently reserved for US accounts. But Richmond was candid that Canada isn’t there yet. “We just need to find the regulated path to get launches to Canadians, and we’ve started to do that,” he said.
Why Canada’s crypto rules are stuck in a middle gear
Canada was actually a pioneer in some ways — it approved spot crypto ETFs and set up a registration system for trading platforms years before many other countries, and it has since passed a Stablecoin Act. But Richmond says that early progress leaned heavily on staff notices and one-off exemption orders for individual companies, not dedicated crypto legislation. “It’s not a new bespoke legislative framework. And that is something I actually think we still need,” he said.
A July report from law firm Norton Rose Fulbright backs up that picture. It found both Canada and the US generally regulate tokenized financial instruments under the same laws as their traditional counterparts, but the US has gone further in issuing detailed guidance covering tokenized securities, collateral, custody and capital treatment. Canadian regulators, the report noted, remain largely in a “consultative stage” — the Canadian Securities Administrators have granted only limited exemptive relief for pilot projects, and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization’s custody framework is explicitly described as interim.
Neither country has a finished, permanent rulebook built specifically for tokenized assets yet. But Norton Rose warned that the US’s head start could let American infrastructure scale faster and give US firms more sway over how global standards for tokenization eventually take shape — something worth watching if you hold tokenized products or plan to.
Futures are close, but not for everyone yet
Coinbase has already secured an “international exemption” letting it offer certain crypto futures, through its CFTC-regulated Coinbase Financial Markets arm, to “permitted” Canadian customers. Opening that up to the broader Canadian retail market, however, needs extra regulatory sign-off — a step that happens automatically in the US thanks to its CFTC oversight structure. As Richmond put it, “It’s not necessarily just a regulatory thing; just the nature of the rules is different.”
For Canadian crypto holders, the takeaway is patience mixed with pressure: the products you want — higher-yield stablecoin lending, DeFi access, retail futures — are technically ready to ship, but they’re waiting on Ottawa’s regulators to build a permanent framework rather than another temporary exemption.
Read more: Franklin Templeton Backs Crypto’s Big Rulebook — Here’s What It Means for Your Coins
