Karsten Wenzlaff, Advisor
August 26th, 2025
Karsten Wenzlaff is a Crowdfunding and Fintech Expert from Germany. He is Secretary-General of Digit[...]
Coinbase Powers Webull Canada Crypto Expansion
August 31, 2026 | NCFA Market Activity | Digital Assets Blockchain And Tokenization, Wealth Investing And Trading, Competition And Market Structure, Capital Markets And Market Infrastructure
Webull adds crypto after two years of building out its Canadian brokerage
On August 31, 2026, Coinbase announced its Webull Canada partnership, supplying the trading and custody services behind Webull's new Canadian crypto offering. Webull maintains the investor relationship and brokerage experience, while Coinbase handles two core crypto functions. The same partnership already supports Webull in the United States, Brazil and Australia.
Webull Canada Crypto Limited was registered as an Investment Dealer and admitted to CIRO membership effective June 17, 2026. Coinbase Canada, Inc. is registered as a Restricted Dealer across Canada.
Crypto arrives after Webull spent more than two years expanding its Canadian brokerage. It launched here in 2024 with Canadian and U.S. equities and later added registered accounts, options, cash management, desktop trading and longer trading hours. Canadian stocks and ETFs now trade at zero commission, while selected securities are available around the clock five days a week.
Webull Has Spent Two Years Expanding in Canada
When Webull entered Canada, its offering was much narrower. The company has since added enough products that crypto now joins an account already spanning stocks, options, cash, margin, TFSAs and RRSPs.
Using Coinbase lets Webull add crypto without building its own trading and custody systems from scratch. It can use infrastructure already supporting the same partnership elsewhere, reducing the amount of technology and operating capability Webull has to build internally.
Webull still has to persuade Canadians to use the product. The company reports 26 million registered users globally but doesn't disclose its Canadian customer count, leaving a large gap between the breadth of its local product menu and what outsiders can see about actual adoption.
Coinbase Can Earn Without Owning the Webull Customer
A Canadian investor trading crypto through Webull remains inside Webull's experience, but Coinbase can still earn from the trading and custody taking place underneath it.
Coinbase has been selling more of those capabilities to financial institutions. Its Crypto as a Service business targets banks, brokers, fintechs and payment companies that want to offer digital assets without building everything themselves. Coinbase said in 2025 that more than 200 institutional clients were already using its infrastructure.
Webull gives Coinbase another customer for that business while Coinbase continues competing directly for Canadian crypto users through its own platform. The two companies can pursue the same investor from different positions. Webull wants the account and ongoing customer relationship. Coinbase can benefit whether the investor chooses Coinbase directly or reaches its services through Webull.
Webull is relying on Coinbase for key parts of the service. If trading, custody, pricing or service problems arise, Webull still has to deal with the customer impact.
Webull Joins Canada's Build Versus Buy Competition
Webull isn't alone in combining its own customer experience with outside financial infrastructure. Wealthsimple offers stocks, cash and crypto from one relationship, while its regular crypto service uses external custodians including Tetra Trust, Coinbase Custody and BitGo. Its recent in app DEX trading beta uses a different model, creating a self custody wallet for the client and routing trades through a third party DEX aggregator.
Crypto focused firms such as Coinsquare, Newton and Shakepay started from a different approach, building their customer relationships around digital assets before adding more services. Webull started as a brokerage and is bringing crypto into an account already built around conventional investing.
Customers can now see a growing number of competing apps even when some important functions behind those apps come from the same suppliers. If several brokers rely on a small group of firms for custody, execution or liquidity, competition at the customer level can grow faster than the number of companies providing the underlying services.
Building everything internally isn't automatically better and often depends on the lifecycle stage of the firm and target customer base. It can preserve more control and economics, but it also brings technology, security, compliance and operating costs. Buying specialist infrastructure can get a product to market faster, provided the platform is comfortable with the dependency and the economics.
Crypto Gives Webull More to Sell Canadian Investors
Webull has removed many of the obvious product gaps since entering Canada. Investors can now trade Canadian and U.S. equities, options and crypto, use registered accounts and access longer trading hours. Another product won't automatically pull customers away from Wealthsimple, established brokerages or dedicated crypto platforms.
See: Wealthsimple Launches In App DEX Trading Beta
Existing Webull users may be the easiest audience. They can add crypto beside the rest of their portfolio without opening another trading relationship. Whether that convenience produces meaningful Canadian crypto activity won't be clear until Webull discloses more about adoption or the market provides other evidence.
Coinbase receives another benefit if the model continues to expand. Its Webull relationship now spans four countries, so a successful Canadian launch gives Coinbase another example it can use when selling trading and custody services to other financial firms. It doesn't need its name on the customer's home screen to participate in the transaction.
Webull and Coinbase are building different businesses from the same Canadian launch. One wants to own more of the investor relationship. The other can earn by supplying financial functions to companies that already have one.
Talking Point
As financial apps buy more of what they offer from specialist providers, who keeps more of the long term value: the company with the customer or the company running the service underneath?
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