TLDR - our bitcoin rate is 0.21%
Our bitcoin rate is 0.21% online! You can make an account @ bitcoinwell.com/join or sign in to your account @ bitcoinwell.com/app. Take advantage of this incredible bitcoin rate to:
- Buy bitcoin with Visa Debit
- Buy bitcoin with Interac e-Transfer
- Sell bitcoin and receive an Interac e-Transfer
Read on to learn more about why 0.21% (and what a bitcoin spread is!). The picture below shows the price and amount of bitcoin at bitcoin well.com compared to a rate comparison page.
21: more than just 7 x 3
I promise we’ll get to how 21 and bitcoin rates are related, but first, a brief bitcoin culture lesson. For anyone familiar with Bitcoin Well, you’ll know that we are obsessed with the number 21. This isn’t unique to us as a company, it’s quite common amongst the bitcoin community. It represents the 21,000,000 bitcoin that will ever be in existence. In our community, it is seen as the “holy grail” of numbers. A number that supersedes and is more important than all other numbers…
How does Bitcoin Well incorporate 21?
We incorporate that silly number in more ways than you’d think. Shockingly, there are a lot of different ways to incorporate the number 21 into different things in a business. Lots of our design choices use 21 where appropriate, our promo codes often incorporate 21 (hint, hint), the date we release certain announcements or products, etc. The number 21 is deeply engrained in our company’s culture.
How does this apply to the average bitcoiner? Aren't we supposed to be talking about bitcoin prices?
Other than an interesting anecdote about how seriously we take bitcoin culture at our organization, we often also apply promotions and marketing materials with the number 21 in mind. Which (finally) brings me to my point – our new spread when you buy bitcoin at bitcoinwell.com! I’ll go over what a spread is in detail below (spoiler: it’s a bitcoin rate – but there is some interesting nuance around it, so read on).
A spread is how we make money. It’s why investors buy the stock (yes, we’re public!) and how we pay our team. And now, the spread is only 0.21%. Yes, 21 bps (basis points). Less than 1/4% of your transaction goes to Bitcoin Well.
So, why? Why all this? Just to get the 21 culture a little further? No, we could have gone 2.1% and been competitive in the market. Frankly, it’s to reward you, an early adopter who is keen to buy, sell and use bitcoin in the fastest and safest way possible.
Why lower our bitcoin prices so much?
We’ve been growing (you may have seen our latest financials) but we wanted to add gas to the fire. Growing, for the most part, is expensive. We launched a new product in the middle of a long, cold bear market. Which makes growing hard and expensive. As a result we had a couple options:
- Pay heaps and heaps of money to a bunch of “reward scrapers” who hunt for bonuses to use platforms (you know who you are)
- Pay ad platforms (those that will take our money regardless of success) and hope for success
- Invest in our product and reward our early-stackers who use the platform by giving them the best possible rate in the country while running a sustainable business.
Obviously, you can deduce we opted for number 3. But, there’s a catch. We need you to help us grow.
You need to help!
Need might be a touch misleading, because it’s not an actual requirement to benefit from the best bitcoin rates in Canada, but we are asking (nicely) for you to help us grow. Ways you can do that are:
- Share the news with your friends. If you like your friends and you want them to have the safest, fastest and cheapest path to stacking sats, tell them!
- Share it on social media. Jump into Reddit conversations and Facebook groups to tell the world YOU have the best way to buy, sell and use bitcoin
- Sign up for our newsletter. Here we will be offering promotions, updates, tricks tips and ways to share (really making the first two bullet points easy!)
I am confident that the best “megaphone” is going to be our users. The people who agree with our philosophy that self-custody of bitcoin is one the most important aspects to life. You are someone who agrees everyone deserves to learn at their own pace. Someone who appreciates a hard working team ready to take on the world in order to give the world a safer and better way to use bitcoin. A user that appreciates future-proof money. Share this by clicking the buttons 👇
What is a spread? Aren't all bitcoin rates equal?
As promised earlier, here is the in depth explanation of a spread.
We are a non-custodial bitcoin retailer that transacts directly with our customers. This means we are NOT an exchange or a trading platform. Bitcoin Well is a retailer, for bitcoin. We acquire our inventory (bitcoin) from institutional liquidity providers in North America. Who we use changes, but is of no impact to you, because your money is never held by or sent to them. Your money is sent directly to you (aka – safer).
To calculate the rates you see in your account we source current market rates (from our list of liquidity providers) and apply a small spread – which is now just 0.21%.
This is common in the industry. In fact, you will often see platforms touting “0 fees!” and then baking in a spread. These platforms are rabid animals that live in dumpsters. They are liars and cannot be trusted.
That said, we also have 0 fees, but you will never see that sole marketing message from us. It will always be prefaced with our current spread rate.
So there you have it, a very long-winded explanation on a pretty simple concept. When you send $100 to Bitcoin Well you get $99.79 worth of bitcoin back in your wallet. Well… kinda.
What do you mean, kinda?
No, I’m not walking back my earlier claim. You WILL be paying just 0.21%. We aren’t a rabid dumpster animal that you shake off your leg when it attacks you. But, the fiat amount you see come back into your bitcoin wallet in mere seconds after you send an Interac e-Transfer will vary based on where your wallet is pulling its bitcoin price.
See, unlike most commodities in the world (actually, all of them except bitcoin and now cRyPtO) there is no central party to “price fix” and there is no “off time”. This means that bitcoin trades at whatever price it wants, 24/7/365. For example, recently in Africa the banks were not allowing citizens to withdraw funds that were on deposit, and as a result there was a rush to “real” money. Many citizens opted for bitcoin and due to the increased demand, but no change in supply, bitcoin traded at a 40% premium in Africa. The same thing happened in South Korea in 2017.
This same concept occurs, on a much smaller scale, with variances between exchanges. If you look on Yahoo Finance the price might read $33,067.52. Now, look on coinmarketcap.com and the price might read $33,047.09. That price is different than the $32,741.43 price that is on Bitpay. These are all real examples, taken within seconds of each other.
Most sats per dollar.
From high to low, a variance of 0.9%. So, do not yell scammer or bring out the pitch forks if the fiat value that comes into your wallet is off from what you expect. First, check the following:
- Is your wallet set to the right currency? We always quote and sell in CAD (for now…)
- What exchange is your exchange quoting from? Unless it’s the exact institutional liquidity provider that we are quoting from (which would be unlikely) you might get a similar variance.
- Did you get the amount of bitcoin you expected? We will always tell you both the price of bitcoin and the amount of sats you can expect to receive when you make a transaction.
Rather than comparing fiat sent with fiat received, think fiat sent and “bang for your buck”. I would encourage you to shop around. In fact, I urge you to. Our product is really strong when put up against our competitors. Measure the time it takes to deposit, trade and withdraw $100 against the time it takes you to send $100 to Bitcoin Well and instantly get bitcoin directly to your wallet. Next, measure the amount of sats sent, on the blockchain, to your wallet, by both platforms.
The proof is in the blockchain.
That is enough from me.
Stay sovereign 🫡
Adam
Benny Sarnelli - Senior Customer Experience Leader @ Bitcoin Well
Meet Benny, the Customer Operations Leader for Bitcoin Well. Benny is dedicated to educating and onboarding new users into the world of Bitcoin and is passionate about helping people understand and navigate the world of cryptocurrency.
