Coinbase wants to be Canada’s ‘everything exchange,’ but says clearer rules are needed first

To Richmond, the delay isn’t about regulators moving slowly, but a structural difference between U.S. and Canadian frameworks.

“It’s not necessarily just a regulatory thing; just the nature of the rules is different,” he said.

Harmonized ‘national instrument’

While there is still work to be done, Richmond is encouraged by the fact that Canadian regulators are actively listening to industry players about digital asset products and are open to creating new regulatory frameworks to support the growing industry.

One example Richmond cited as “a very good piece of legislation” is the new Stablecoin Act, which was enacted by the Canadian Federal government earlier this year, after the U.S. passed the GENIUS Act last year.

In the wake of the Stablecoin Act’s passage, Canada has already seen Tetra Trust — a company backed by heavyweights such as Wealthsimple, Shopify and National Bank of Canada — launching Canada’s first regulated financial institution-issued Canadian-dollar stablecoin CADD.

Canada has already shown that crypto companies can operate inside a regulated market. The next test is whether its rules can accommodate products that move beyond spot trading into payments, derivatives, tokenized securities and decentralized finance.

Richmond said that, rather than having companies interpret these guidelines, “codifying” the existing regulatory practices into a national framework that applies consistently across provincial securities regulators will help reduce legal uncertainties for builders. Essentially, he argued that Canada should consolidate more of its existing crypto requirements into a ‘national instrument’ — a set of harmonized securities rules adopted across provincial and territorial regulators.