Guide · sent by email
What a digital asset business is actually registered for.
For exchanges, wallet providers and payment firms that touch digital assets, in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom or the European Union.
What is in it
The question is not whether crypto is regulated.
Founders usually arrive with the wrong question. They ask whether digital assets are regulated in a given country, get an answer that sounds reassuring or alarming, and plan around it. The answer is almost never the useful one.
- Why the question is never "is crypto regulated here" but "which existing category have you landed in"
- The four jurisdictions, and what each one registers you as
- The definition that decides it in Canada, and the two words in it that catch more firms than people expect
- Custody as the dividing line, and why holding a private key is the thing that moves you
- What the transfer rules ask you to send with a transaction, and the wallet that cannot receive it
- What to settle before you launch, because the registration is the cheap part
Roughly 1196 words. Every regulatory statement carries the section it rests on, so you can read the provision rather than take our word for it:
Get the guide
Where should we send it?
It arrives as one email. Asking for the guide on its own does not add you to any list. What we do with this.
Not legal advice. Northward is a compliance practice, not a law firm. The guide sets out what the published rules say and how they are applied in practice at different risk appetites. What that means for your business is a conversation. Disclaimer.
Rather just ask?
If the question is specific to your business, a conversation gets further than a guide.