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Bull Bitcoin is a Canadian company that has sold bitcoin since 2013 and has never held any of it. You pay from your bank, give it an address from your own wallet, and it sends a real bitcoin transaction there. Our verdict: the most direct route in Canada to holding your own keys, from a company that publishes its buy and sell prices side by side instead of hiding them. It is also the hardest of these four to start with, because you need a wallet first and its cost is a gap in the price you work out yourself.
Facts on this page were checked against Bull Bitcoin’s own home, buy, rates and Canadian terms pages on September 22, 2026.
| Founded | 2013 |
|---|---|
| Based in | Alberta, Canada (Satoshi Portal Inc., founded in Montreal) |
| Coins | Bitcoin only |
| Fees | No trading fee, and no fee to fund by Interac e-Transfer, bill payment or wire. The cost is the gap between the price Bull Bitcoin sells bitcoin at and the market price. It publishes its live buy and sell prices instead of a percentage, so there is no rate to quote |
| Custody | Non-custodial: every purchase is sent straight to the bitcoin address you give, on-chain, over Lightning or over Liquid, and the company never holds your bitcoin |
| Best for | Canadians who already have their own wallet and want bitcoin only, with no company holding it for them |
Compare Bull Bitcoin side by side with other exchanges
What it is
The home page says “since our founding in 2013 at the Bitcoin Embassy in Montreal,” and calls the company “a non-custodial Bitcoin exchange and OTC desk.” The Canadian business is Satoshi Portal Inc., “a Canadian Corporation located in Alberta, registered under FINTRAC (Registration number M16730720) as a Money Service Business.”
It is bitcoin only, and loudly so: the home page says “we never touched shitcoins.” It will also pay Canadian dollar bills out of a bitcoin balance and run recurring buys. For larger customers, “discounted rates are available to Bull Bitcoin Prime users with over $100,000 in transaction volume.”
What “non-custodial” means here. On an ordinary exchange you buy bitcoin and it sits in the company’s account until you withdraw it. Bull Bitcoin skips that step. Its terms say “Bull Bitcoin does not offer Bitcoin custody services. We do not hold, secure, or manage users’ bitcoins on their behalf.” So there is nothing to withdraw, no withdrawal fee, and nothing of yours to lose if it failed. The price is responsibility: you need a wallet, and a mistyped address cannot be undone. Read Wallets and Self-Custody first.
Fees
There is no percentage to quote, and that is the honest summary. The rates page lists buying and selling as “no fee,” and every bitcoin payout, on-chain, Lightning or Liquid, as “no fee” too. Funding is free by Interac e-Transfer, wire or bank bill payment. Interac e-Transfer is the standard Canadian way to send money from a bank account using an email address or phone number; it arrives in about an hour on business days.
What you pay is the gap between the price Bull Bitcoin sells bitcoin at and the wider market price, and it does not publish that gap as a number. What it does publish, live on the rates page, is its buy price and its sell price next to each other: “unlike most crypto exchanges, we do not hide our spread. What you see is what you get.” That is more than most exchanges show, and it is why our chart says “Not verified” rather than a figure.
We did the arithmetic once, on September 21, 2026. Against the midpoint of the two published Canadian dollar prices, the buy price sat about 2.4% above; the US dollar pair at the same moment worked out at about 2.0%. That is our own calculation of one moment, not a rate Bull Bitcoin commits to, and it will have moved. Before a large purchase, compare its live buy price against what NDAX or Newton would charge all in.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Buying or selling | No fee; the cost is the gap in the price |
| Funding by e-Transfer, wire or bill payment | Free |
| Paying in person at Canada Post | 3.95 CAD |
| Bitcoin payout, on-chain | Free, about an hour; express costs the priority network fee |
| Payout over Lightning or Liquid | Free, instant |
Buying bitcoin step by step
- Set up a bitcoin wallet first, and write its recovery phrase on paper before you put anything in it. Any reputable wallet works.
- Copy a receiving address out of that wallet. Mistakes here are permanent, so paste it, never retype it.
- Create an account and verify your identity. Limits “may be significantly lower, or not available at all, if your identity verification is incomplete.”
- Fund the account by Interac e-Transfer, which processes “within minutes of being sent,” or by wire. Over $10,000 it asks you to speak to a Prime representative first.
- Click Buy Bitcoin, enter an amount and paste the address. In its own words, “once you confirm the order, we create a real Bitcoin transaction.”
- Watch your wallet. Bull Bitcoin says you can “have Bitcoin in your own wallet within the hour.” When it arrives you are done: there is no withdrawal step. Send a small test amount the first time.
Selling works in reverse: send bitcoin from your wallet and the dollars come back by e-Transfer, free, up to $10,000 a time.
Where you can use it
Canada, and only Canada. The terms refuse residents of more than forty countries, and the United States and the United Kingdom are both named; from the US, Bitcoin Well is the closest equivalent. Within Canada, Bull Bitcoin publishes no list of the provinces or territories it serves, and its Canadian terms say nothing about Quebec. It was founded in Montreal and appears to operate nationally, but because it does not say so in writing, confirm your province during sign-up before you send money.
Security and trust
The usual exchange risks mostly do not apply: Bull Bitcoin cannot be hacked for your coins, freeze your withdrawals or fail while holding them, because it never holds them. Thirteen years in, we found no reported loss of customer funds.
The registration gap, plainly. Bull Bitcoin is registered with FINTRAC, Canada’s anti-money-laundering agency, as a money services business. It is not registered with any securities regulator, and neither Bull Bitcoin nor Satoshi Portal appears on the Canadian Securities Administrators’ list of platforms authorised to do business with Canadians, where Shakepay, Newton and NDAX all do. The CSA’s position is that crypto platforms “must be regulated by a Canadian securities regulator,” with no published exemption for non-custodial ones. It is not on the CSA’s banned list either, so we are not saying a rule is broken. We are saying the regulator overseeing the other three is not overseeing this one, and you should know before you choose.
What is left is your own care. Paste the wrong address, or lose your wallet and its recovery phrase, and the bitcoin is gone with nobody to reverse it. Read Keeping Your Bitcoin Safe.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Nobody holds your bitcoin: each purchase goes straight to your own wallet, with no withdrawal step and no payout fee.
- The buy and sell prices are published live on the rates page, so you can work out the cost before you open an account.
- Bitcoin only, running since 2013, and Lightning and Liquid payouts are free.
Cons
- You need your own bitcoin wallet before you can buy anything, and a mistyped address cannot be undone.
- There is no percentage to compare: you have to read the live buy price yourself, and the gap we measured on September 21, 2026 was wider than the fees Newton and NDAX publish.
- A FINTRAC money services business but not a securities registrant, so it is not on the CSA’s list of platforms authorised to do business with Canadians.
Taxes
Buying bitcoin is not a taxable event in Canada. Selling it, spending it or swapping it is. The Canada Revenue Agency’s crypto-asset guidance, last updated December 2, 2025, says a disposition “may occur” when you “trade or exchange it for government-issued currency or another type of crypto-asset,” “use it to buy goods or services,” or give it away, and that if you disposed of it on account of capital “you must include half of your capital gains (known as taxable capital gains) in your income for the year.” Paying a bill out of a bitcoin balance counts too. Our own Bitcoin and Taxes page covers the United States only; start from the CRA’s own crypto-asset pages. Because the coins leave the platform, your wallet is the only complete ledger, so keep your own records. This is education, not tax advice.
Who it’s for
Bull Bitcoin suits a Canadian who has decided to hold their own keys, has a wallet they trust, and wants bitcoin only with no company in the middle. It suits people who watched exchanges fail and concluded the safest exchange is the one that never has your coins.
It does not suit a first purchase. With no wallet yet, start at Shakepay or Newton, learn to withdraw to a wallet you control, and come back. Nor does it suit anyone comparing on price alone: you cannot compare a number that is not published.
The button below goes to Bull Bitcoin’s ordinary sign-up page and carries no referral code. Its partner programme, The Mission, is application only and calls acceptance “highly selective”; we have not applied. This is education, not financial or tax advice.
Next
- Shakepay review: the simplest app here.
- Newton review: the fee printed as a number.
- NDAX review: a flat 0.20% on a busier screen.
- Compare the four side by side.
- Answer three questions instead.