The story of Netcoins begins where many crypto hopefuls’ stories end: at the moment when Canada’s digital asset dream collided with the cold architecture of securities law. Global platforms vanished in the face of tightening rules, while a comparatively small, homegrown exchange chose the opposite path, leaning into regulation and treating compliance as its core product. That wager has now translated into millions in revenue, triple-digit growth, and a rare commodity in the digital asset world: trust.
A Market Shaken by Exits and Crackdowns
Canadian regulators have intensified their scrutiny of crypto trading platforms, requiring pre-registration undertakings, stricter custody rules, and bans on leverage and specific stablecoin activities for firms that fail to comply with these regulations. Several exchanges balked, cited an environment they deemed “no longer tenable,” and began withdrawing from the Canadian market. For everyday investors, the message felt bewildering: the platforms with the loudest marketing budgets suddenly disappeared, leaving a vacuum where brand recognition had once stood in for due diligence.
In parallel, a series of global collapses by unregulated or lightly regulated players deepened public skepticism about whether any crypto platform could truly be safe. Netcoins’ leadership understood that in this climate, the real competition involved not just other exchanges, but the perception that the entire sector was a rigged game. If investors believed the house was always cheating, no amount of progress would matter.
The Decision To Play by the Rules
Netcoins, owned by publicly traded BIGG Digital Assets Inc., made an unfashionable choice for a sector long defined by its hostility to oversight. It positioned itself explicitly as a compliance-first crypto business, building a model around working with regulators rather than around them. Its president, Fraser Matthews, framed the strategy bluntly: being safe, secure, and regulatory compliant was a working manual, and that stance meant no margin products, no customer asset leverage, and full backing of client coins with insurance.
That stance extended beyond Canada’s borders. When it expanded into the United States, the company initially focused on states that required money transmitter licenses, opting for a slow and expensive approach of applying for jurisdiction on a state-by-state basis. Matthews described it as offering a “compliant version of crypto” to users burned by unregistered exchanges. In an industry that often celebrated speed over substance, the platform built its brand on the unglamorous disciplines of licensing, auditing, and proof of reserves reporting, steps it committed to repeat on a quarterly basis after the spectacular implosions of 2022.
Compliance as Growth Engine, Not Brake
The numbers that followed would upend the conventional wisdom that regulation and growth stand in opposition. In 2023, Netcoins’ revenues reached about 10.56 million Canadian dollars, up 112 percent from the previous year. Trading volumes climbed past 3 billion dollars in lifetime activity, and year-over-year volume growth exceeded 130 percent in late 2025, powered by an expanding menu of roughly 60 listed assets and new staking services.
Internally, the company paired that topline expansion with what it cast as disciplined cost control. In its 2025 financial guidance, Netcoins projected trading and staking revenue of $ 2.5 million in a single quarter, net income of approximately $ 2.8 million, and operating expenses of nearly $ 2.3 million, figures that suggested the compliance investment produced gains for the bottom line. With approximately $ 18 million in cash and digital assets, and more than $ 225 million in assets under custody, it argued that its conservative posture had become a competitive advantage in attracting risk-averse retail investors and institutional clients.
External scrutiny reinforced that edge. In 2025, Netcoins completed a System and Organization Controls (SOC) 2 Type 1 audit, with a Type 2 audit planned for 2026, indicating that its security and data handling practices were being tested to enterprise standards more commonly found in traditional finance than in cryptocurrency. For a target market wary of opaque offshore entities, the message was clear: the platform was willing to let auditors, regulators, and shareholders into the engine room.
The New Currency: Trust
For Canadian investors left stranded by departing platforms, Netcoins’ strategy offers an alternative narrative in a sector still rebuilding from scandal. It presents itself as a platform “built for Canada, powered by trust,” emphasizing transparency, auditing, and a public company parent to differentiate itself from privately held, offshore entities. Matthews frequently returns to the idea that “good people doing good projects” will push through the industry’s crises, but the company’s real bet rests on the belief that regulatory alignment will matter more than bravado when the next storm hits.
The broader regulatory climate suggests that this bet may be well timed. Canadian securities authorities have been explicit that platforms failing to comply with the rules pose substantial risks to customers, particularly in terms of asset safeguarding and conflicts of interest. In that context, Netcoins’ refusal to offer margin, its focus on proof of reserves, and its pursuit of SOC 2 attestations function as more than check-the-box exercises; they form the core of its pitch to a market that has seen what shortcuts can cost.
For a target audience of cautious retail investors, family offices, and corporates exploring digital assets, the story is as much about what Netcoins does not do as what it offers. The platform does not chase leverage, it does not defy regulators, and it does not hide its balance sheet. In a sector still prone to boom and bust theatrics, an exchange that says no to shortcuts, to gray area products, to regulatory brinkmanship may find that the most radical act involves behaving like a financial institution. Netcoins is wagering that, in the long run, that quiet refusal will continue to pay off in millions.
