I built Canada’s largest crypto company. But the business climate here made selling to Robinhood inevitable

When Robinhood agreed to buy WonderFi, the company I founded, some of Canada’s loudest voices argued that federal regulators should block the deal. WonderFi, they said, had become a strategic national asset, the crypto equivalent of one of Canada’s Big Five banks, and that it could not be allowed to fall into American hands.

I understood the concern. Canada has been losing on too many fronts. For decades, capital and many of our most talented and ambitious citizens have moved south. But blocking the sale of my company to Robinhood would have done nothing to address the underlying problems that have spurred this exodus.

Sure, Canada would be better off with more large, Canadian-owned tech companies. But that would require creating the conditions for a company as ambitious as WonderFi to keep expanding after winning the home market.

I founded WonderFi in 2021. Over the next several years, we brought together the best talent and technology in the country, built a national brand, and consolidated a fragmented crypto market. We built trust with millions of users – no small feat after Quadriga, Canada’s last notable crypto exchange, collapsed in fraud and scandal. We went on to survive the collapse of FTX, despite them being an early investor, and worked through one of the most aggressive........

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