NDAX Review: Is It A Scam Or A Legit Crypto Exchange For Canadians?

NDAX is a cryptocurrency exchange for Canadians based in Calgary that try to compete with BitBuy to be the most affordable crypto exchange for Canadians. We signed up for an account to see if it’s worth using in 2024. Here’s our NDAX review.

NDAX Quick Summary

National Digital Asset Exchange Inc (NDAX) claims to have both the lowest fees and the most coins available in Canada. Both claims are out of date, considering Newton has zero fees and more cryptocurrencies available. However, it is worth mentioning that Newton charges higher spread fees and we spent $100, NDAX was slightly cheaper to use.

NDAX does indeed have low fees at just 0.2% for buying and selling. It is a fixed fee no matter how you buy or sell. They also have free deposits with no minimum or maximum. With NDAX you can purchase Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, EOS, Stellar Lumens, Dogecoin, Cardano, USDT, Chainlink, Polkadot, Uniswap, The Graph, Compound, Axie Infinity (AXS), Aave, and Polygon. 

NDAX Features

NDAX has a packed website full of helpful resources. There is a page about each cryptocurrency they offer with the coin’s history, use cases, charting, how to buy crypto, and more. This educational content is a huge welcome because it shows a level of thought and care for their customers to make informed decisions, which is not seen by all exchanges. 

NDAX also allows you to whitelist wallet addresses and see them in a handy address book. By whitelisting an address, you can be sure that no withdrawals will be made to crypto wallets you don’t recognize. It also means you do not have to wait 10 minutes while NDAX verifies the transaction. Instead, you simply send funds to a whitelisted address, confirm the transaction via email, and then the transaction is added to the blockchain. You can learn how to whitelist an address on NDAX here. 

NDAX Registration/verification

What You Need to Open an Account:

• Must be 18+
• A government-issued ID
• A selfie 
• Answer employment questions

When signing up for an NDAX account, you will first have to enter your name and email address and activate your email. Next, you’ll need to answer some questions about your employment and include your job title and business name. Then, you’ll need to provide images of your government-issued ID and a selfie. 

The process is relatively simple, however answering such detailed questions about your employment seemed a bit intrusive and was a hassle, especially when their drop-down menu does not give a wide range of professions or industries. It was confusing and I was surprised they asked for the employment information. However, it’s FINTRAC regulation thing and all reliable Canadian crypto exchanges need to ask these questions.

Verification is usually instant and takes just a few seconds to be approved. 

NDAX Fees

NDAX has some of the lowest fees of any cryptocurrency exchange. They charge just 0.2% for buying and selling, no matter how much. This fixed fee will ensure you know exactly what you will be paying in fees per trade. There are no deposit fees and there is a fixed $4.99 bank withdrawal fee. With NDAX, you’ll always know how much you’re paying. These fixed fees are an incentive to trade larger amounts, which is a clever tactic. 

• Free deposits
• $4.99 fixed bank transfer withdrawal
• 0.2% fixed trading fee (buy and sell)

NDAX Spreads

A spread is the difference between the highest price a buyer is willing to pay (bid price) and the lowest price a seller is willing to sell (ask price). The spread goes to the exchange as profit. 

Spreads can often be hidden and the exchange won’t always be transparent. So you may think you are paying low fees, but in reality you’re paying hidden costs. 

With NDAX we did not encounter a spread on our bitcoin purchase but we did on our bitcoin sale.

How Much Does it Really Cost To Trade With NDAX?

We sent $100 to our NDAX account via Interac. There are no deposit fees so we received the full $100. Then we bought bitcoin and received $99.80 worth meaning we paid a fee of just $0.20 or 0.2%.

We then sold our bitcoin for $99.24 meaning we lost $0.56 or 0.56%. Since the trading fee is 0.2% this means the spread for our sale was 0.36%. This figure is on the lower end and shows that NDAX is cheap to use. 

We withdrew our fiat to our bank account and were charged a $4.99 fee, leaving us with a total of $94.20. We spent less when trading the same amount with BitBuy.

Recently, NDAX added a new withdrawal option via Interac e-Transfer for only $1.50, allowing you to reduce the total cost to $97.74.

NDAX Currencies & Deposit Methods

When trading cryptocurrency with NDAX, you can deposit Canadian dollars via a free 30-minute Interac e-Transfer, or via a free, one-day wire transfer or bank draft.

How Long Do Deposits Take?

Our deposit took 30 minutes to arrive in our NDAX account.

How Long Does it Take to Withdraw Coins?

Withdrawing coins depends on the network but takes up to 10 minutes for bitcoin.

We withdrew Canadian dollars from NDAX to our bank account via electronic funds transfer, which takes up to five days to process. There is a $4.99 fee for this and Interac is not available for fiat withdrawals. 

NDAX Security and Safety

Is NDAX safe for Canadians to use? Yes, in fact, NDAX provides some of the best security measures we’ve seen (only BitBuy is more secure). You can view the full list here, but here are some of the stand-out points. 

NDAX keeps its digital assets in cold storage using Ledger Vault, although they do not state the percentage. Ledger is a big name in the cryptocurrency space, known for making secure hardware wallets for keeping your crypto safe. 

One interesting point that NDAX addresses is how money held in customers’ fiat wallets is protected. NDAX says that its users’ Canadian dollars are held in a segregated Canadian bank account. It means that should anything happen to the exchange, for example, insolvency, then your funds could be located and distributed back to you. No other Canadian crypto exchange that we have reviewed mentions fiat money protection, so this is a big plus for NDAX. 

Registered as a Money Service Business with FINTRAC and AMF, NDAX is fully compliant with Canadian regulations. Being compliant is important when choosing a cryptocurrency exchange because otherwise, it could be a scam.

NDAX does ongoing monitoring of its servers and frequent maintenance without interference to prevent malicious attacks. 

When signing up for NDAX, you must enable two-factor authentication. There’s no opting out, which is a good thing. It’s a mandatory step that provides the most protection for your account. Most exchanges will give you the option of enabling 2FA, but we think that having it forced on you is actually for your own benefit. The last thing you want is an unauthorized person accessing your account. 

Additionally, when you wish to change your details such as your email, address, phone number etc, NDAX requires you to submit a selfie with a handwritten note outlining the request. We think this step, while it may seem annoying to some, is actually the most secure way to handle requests such as these. 

Mobile and Desktop App

NDAX has an iOS app with a 4.6-star rating with 550 reviews. Its Android app has a 4.0-star rating with 80 reviews. 

The mobile app is much like its desktop counterpart. The first page you see is the market information. 

At the top of the page, you can select to view “All” markets or markets only against the Canadian dollar. The only difference between the two pages is that on “All” markets it lists BTC against USDT. The rest of the cryptocurrencies are listed with their price in Canadian dollars. Having these two pages with such little difference seems rather redundant. 

Other than that, there aren’t many features that can confuse you. You can make deposits and withdrawals, view markets and charting, and see your address book. We like the app. It’s clean, simple, and functions well. 

Design and Usability

NDAX has a sophisticated and professional look. It doesn’t try too hard to be modern or to stand out from the crowd. The exchange is easy to navigate with clean white pages which makes it feels like a solid, reputable crypto exchange. Nothing more nothing less. 

The desktop platform is easy to use. Everything you need to make basic trades is right there. They also provide you with an affiliate link so you can refer friends and earn crypto in return. To deposit funds, just click the deposit button at the top and follow the simple steps to deposit via e-Transfer or bank transfer. Keep in mind that you can only deposit Canadian dollars. 

NDAX has a scrolling sidebar, which makes the desktop platform easy to navigate. Using the sidebar, you can link your bank account and set up recurring deposits. You can view your crypto addresses, your wallets and also access settings and support. 

In the main dashboard, you can make a quick trade, view your portfolio distribution, recent transactions, recent logins, and more. 

Customer support

As with most cryptocurrency exchanges, NDAX provides a knowledge centre on its website. Articles here answer some of the most common questions. They also have a live chat function, which is handy when you need a quick answer. You can also email them for support. Confusingly, NDAX lists its phone number on its contact page, which is rare for a crypto exchange to do. We weren’t sure if this meant they had phone support, so we reached out via email to ask. They got back to us a very impressive 20 minutes later to let us know that they only have email support. So that’s that. Still, that’s the fastest response we’ve seen.

NDAX Consumer Ratings, Reports & Reviews on Other Platforms

NDAX has a good 4.0-star rating on Trustpilot, which is encouraging. Not many crypto exchanges have such rating.

There is also a portion of negative reviews. Some customers have had issues with their funds being held or being unable to withdraw. Others complain about the withdrawal fees and ‘missing’ funds. It’s worth mentioning that NDAX replies to all these reviews, demonstrating a positive quality of their customer support.

 

NDAX Alternatives

There are many Canadian crypto exchanges to choose from such as Bitbuy, which is Canada’s first regulated exchange. It has free deposits and several of the most popular cryptocurrencies. 

CoinSmart is also a good option for Canadians and my personal favourite.

	NDAX	Bitbuy	Bitget
Trading fees	0.2%	0% to 1.5%	0.1%
Cryptocurrencies	36+	40+	850+
Additional features	Staking, OTC Desk	OTC Desk	Futures, Derivatives trading
Customer Support	Poor	Good	Good
Security	Good	Excellent	Good
		Read review	Read review

Does NDAX Offer Staking or Other Services?

NDAX is one of the few Canadian crypto exchanges that offer crypto staking. You can stake your Ethereum, Cardano, The Graph, Polkadot, and Polygon. They have a staking calculator so you can approximate your returns, and a dashboard where you can view your staked coins and their performance. 

NDAX also has a referral program where you can earn 10% of the trading fees from your referral’s trades, up to a maximum of $1000 per person referred. You can use our referral link to help us out 🙂

NDAX is suitable for Canadian residents only.

Does NDAX Have an OTC Desk?

NDAX has an OTC Desk for anyone looking to trade $200,000 or more. You’ll get personalized service and access to a wide range of digital assets.

NDAX Liquidity

We could not find information about NDAX’s liquidity but NDAX does have an OTC Desk for making large trades.

Does NDAX Restrict or Freeze Accounts?

NDAX does not commonly freeze accounts but they can if they suspect suspicious activity. 

Suspicious activity could include trading larger amounts than usual or trading more frequently than you usually do. NDAX may suspect someone else is using your account or that you are being reckless and gambling more than you should. 

If your account is frozen you will need to contact NDAX’s support team. While NDAX is not in the habit of freezing accounts, many users have complained about their funds taking a long time to withdraw from the exchange. 

Can NDAX Track where you Receive and Send Crypto?

NDAX can track where you have received and sent crypto since all transactions are recorded on public blockchains. The information available includes time and date, amount sent and both “to” and “from” wallets.

Since users must submit identity documents during the verification process, it is easy for NDAX to link wallets and transactions on the blockchain with their customer’s accounts. 

By following a trail, this is how the Canadian government was able to freeze accounts of the protestors during the “Freedom Convoy” earlier this year.

Conclusion

NDAX has really thought of everything. From making 2FA mandatory to allowing whitelisting of addresses, it’s really got everything you need from an exchange. It also has the most detailed and transparent information about its security features we’ve seen. 

We also like that it offers advanced order types in a beginner-friendly interface. We like its highly-rated app, the fixed fee, its educational content on every coin it lists. We could go on.

Most of all, we like that it doesn’t try hard to stand out from every other exchange. It doesn’t need modern typefaces or quirky illustrations, or an “out there” colour palette. NDAX must know it’s a good exchange because it lets its quality features do the talking. If you found this review helpful and decided to start an account with NDAX we will highly appreciate it if you use our referral sign-up link. You will get free $10 when you deposit $100 CAD or more. Alternatively, check our big research on the best crypto exchanges in Canada or try BitBuy. 

You can also check the review on our Youtube channel: