On April 14th, all current Canadian customers will be placed in “close-only mode.”
This action was taken after the Canadian regulator announced stricter regulations.
In preparation for leaving the Canadian market, cryptocurrency derivatives exchange dYdX has stated that it would be banning user accounts from Canadian residents from the next week.
As part of “winding down services,” dYdX announced on April 7 that it will stop accepting new Canadian customers. On April 14th, all current Canadian customers will be placed in “close-only mode,” enabling them to only withdraw funds.
The exchange stated:
“DYdX is committed to providing transparency around product decisions and democratizing access to financial opportunity. We hope that the regulatory climate in Canada will change over time to allow us to resume services in the country.”
Stringent Regulations
This action was taken after the Canadian Securities Administrators announced stricter regulations for crypto exchange registration. According to the regulations, it is strictly forbidden for platforms to facilitate the purchase and sale of any crypto asset that is itself a security and/or derivative by Canadian customers.
A dYdX campaign in September 2022 promising a $25 deposit bonus for verifying one’s identity with a live webcam picture was widely panned by users and people in the crypto community. However, despite some legitimate privacy concerns, the exchange discontinued the service due to “overwhelming demand.”
The DeFi exchange’s underlying layer-2 protocol’s governance token, DYDX, was severely impacted by the announcement of Canada’s departure. After dropping almost 5%, the token is back up to $2.48. It went down all the way to $2.43 in the last 24 hours.
According to CMC, the dYdX price today is $2.48 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $59,294,407 USD and is down 1.27% in the last 24 hours.