Shakepay's reward program has shown that they are serious about becoming the top cryptocurrency exchange in Canada.
Since their launch in 2015, the biggest draw to the project has been their #ShakingSats program, where you are awarded Satoshis (a fraction of a Bitcoin) simply by opening the app and shaking your phone once per day. What is even more intriguing is that the amount of Satoshis you are awarded increases every day that you maintain your streak. On the first day you shake, you receive 100 Satoshis (value of ~$0.05 CAD). On Day 2, you get 110 Satoshis. The rewards continue to increase until the rewards max out on Day 200, when you are awarded a whopping 1000 Satoshi (value of ~$0.55 CAD), which is the reward you will be given for each day after Day 200 as well.
I'll admit, a free ~$0.55 of BTC per day sounded a little too good to be true. So I decided to do some research into the most obvious question: how does Shakepay make money?
Shakepay is a commission-free exchange with no transaction fees. They even cover the transaction fees for moving your crypto off of the platform. This is an incredible perk, especially when you consider that they will cover the hefty transaction fees required for moving ETH (min withdrawal of 0.05 ETH).
I was very skeptical, so I decided to test this with BTC. I bought $100CAD of BTC through Shakepay and then immediately transferred it to my Celsius account. Exactly $100.00 of BTC appeared in my Celsius wallet minutes later. Shakepay covered every single penny of the transaction fee.
So the big question becomes even bigger: how does Shakepay make money?
Shakepay is transparent about its business practices. Within their app on their help page, they explain exactly how their platform is profitable. "At any point in time, there will be a small difference between the price customers can buy crypto and the price at which they can sell. Shakepay will capture this difference as revenue to cover our costs as a business, maintain our platform, and offer great service to customers."
In other words, they use what is commonly referred to as a "spread". This is used on all major crypto exchanges and is pretty standard. Impressively, their spread seems to be fairly reasonable. At the time of writing this, Shakepay is selling Bitcoin at $55,128.95 CAD. At the exact same time, crypto.com is selling Bitcoin at $55,728.84. Shakepay is selling BTC at a greater than 1% price discount when compared to crypto.com, one of the largest exchanges in Canada. While I won't estimate their exact percentage of revenue, it appears that Shakepay's spread is significantly lower than many other major exchanges, all whilst being transparent about their practices AND covering the transaction fees required to move your assets to your preferred platform.
I have been using Shakepay for 10 days now, and I am thoroughly impressed. The #ShakingSats rewards have been as advertised, and transactions have been as smooth as can be. They have also launched a VISA card that offers 1% BTC rewards with all purchases. It seems that Shakepay is truly trying to become Canada's top crypto exchange and striving to offer financial freedom for Canadians.
Quick and dirty breakdown:
Pros
- Free BTC every day through #ShakingSats
- Zero transaction fees
- Lightning-fast transactions
- Reasonable spread
- Visa card
- Transparency
- Well-designed app
Cons
- Only buy/sell BTC and ETH at the time of writing
- Slow response time from support chat
If you are interested in joining Shakepay, it is very important to note that you must register with a referral code in order to get the daily Bitcoin rewards. I would greatly appreciate it if you would use my referral link (https://shakepay.me/r/GS0YXA7), as this article has taken a lot of time and research to compile. Additionally, if you sign up with my link, you will get $30 for free when you buy $100CAD or more of crypto. I would also get $30.
Lastly, if you would like to earn interest on your crypto, I recommend buying BTC/ETH on Shakepay, and then transferring it to Celsius where you can earn interest (6.2% and 5.35% for BTC and ETH respectively). If you also use my Celsius referral code (1596856e3d), we will both get $50USD of BTC when you transfer $400 or more to Celsius. Combined with the Shakepay reward, that's almost $94CAD of free rewards!
Overall, I highly recommend Shakepay and am very excited to see where the platform goes in the coming years. Please remember that this is not financial advice, always do your own research!
