Virtex Canada will have to review their fees, finally...

[ehoffman]

In Canada, the only real exchange for us is the Canadian Virtual Exchange (caVirtex).  However, a year ago they raised their BTC trading fees from 0.5% to 3% (2.5% if you have 100BTC transaction in the last 120 days, 2% if you have 300 BTC transactions, etc) based on dodgy basis (to supposedly cover their fees for trying to establish with the government laws/paperwork).  So us, Canadian, really get stealing fees.

So, it's really bad for trading, especially if you want to buy and sell later (or the inverse) and make profit.  You basically can't do short term trading since this need BTC to fluctuate like 5~10 points for any profit to be made.

Most other exchanges have like 0.X% fees.  Mt. Gox base fee is 0.6%.

Now that they (Gox) are coming to North America, and promise easy trading for Canadians too (even if in USD), caVirtex will eat their shirt ...  finally...

[medicine]

I really really hope so, I've been wishing for this for a while now!

[dooglus]

In Canada, the only real exchange for us is the Canadian Virtual Exchange (caVirtex).

I was looking at Canadian exchanges yesterday after seeing that cavirtex charges a huge 3%.

I found https://www.libertybit.com/ who only charge 0.5%.

We have a low 0.5% fee on all BTC trades regardless of volume, price, or currency. Reduce your spreads.

Do you have any experience of them?

The spread is currently $67.57 CAD - $70.20 CAD - or about 3.9%, so I guess that's a problem.

[moni3z]

I bet coinlab won't be any cheaper for Canadian funds either. Seems like they would make money off transferring the funds, and Gox makes money off trading fees, so you're still looking at roughly the same amount

[bitcoinscanada]

Exchanges need to markup the prices a bit to they can make a profit and keep their operations going, which is a convenience to us all..

[nitrous]

Exchanges need to markup the prices a bit to they can make a profit and keep their operations going, which is a convenience to us all..

I'm not in Canada, but 3% seems overly steep. In essence, bitcoin exchanges are simply forex platforms (even if they aren't nearly as professional yet). These platforms usually make their money in the spread, which is often less than 0.05%! It is true that they typically have large minimum trade sizes and their volumes are much higher, but surely all bitcoin exchanges should aim for less than 1% fees if they wish to stay trusted and competitive.