Wealthsimple perpetual futures: what Canadian traders get, and what isn't known yet

Wealthsimple announced perpetual futures at its "Wealthsimple Presents" event in Toronto on 5 November 2026. It says it will be the first and only brokerage offering perps on crypto, metals and indices to Canadian retail traders. The launch is expected in late November, according to Wealthsimple's newsroom and MoneySense. It hadn't launched when we checked on 13 November.

What Wealthsimple has published

These details come from Wealthsimple's perpetual futures waitlist page:

• Markets at launch: metals including gold and silver, oil, crypto and indices.
• No expiry, 24/7. Perpetual futures don't expire. Instead, a funding payment between long and short traders keeps the price close to the underlying market.
• Leverage: crypto is capped at 2x, which Wealthsimple attributes to Canadian regulation. Metals go up to 15x.
• Funding: paid between traders every 8 hours for crypto and daily for metals and indices, capped at plus or minus 2%.
• Account: perps run inside the Wealthsimple margin account.
• Orders: market buys only at launch.

What isn't known yet

• Fees. Wealthsimple hasn't published trading fees for perps. Its standard futures, which are already live, cost US$1 per contract.
• Eligibility. It hasn't said who will qualify, or whether any province is excluded.
• Exact date. It has only said "late November".

One thing may confuse you: Wealthsimple's perpetual futures learn page says eligible clients "can now trade futures contracts". That refers to standard futures, not perps.

Wealthsimple Pro and Penny

The same event announced two more products:

• Wealthsimple Pro: a suite for active traders with positions, watchlists and Level 2 data. The newsroom says it's due by the end of 2026, while BetaKit reports a desktop beta by the end of November.
• Penny: an AI assistant that can buy and sell stocks and ETFs, but only after the client confirms each trade. Wealthsimple hasn't given a date. BetaKit reports late 2026 or early 2027, and Wealthsimple plans connections to ChatGPT and Claude for early 2027.

What to test before you trade perps

Perpetual futures behave differently from spot and from dated futures:

• Funding is a cost or income. It's paid every 8 hours on crypto, whether the trade is winning or losing. A strategy that holds positions for days pays or earns it many times, so model it in the backtest.
• Leverage changes the risk, not the edge. Even at 2x, a losing streak costs twice as much. At 15x on metals, a 5% move in gold is 75% of the margin. Size from the worst drawdown in your backtest, not from the leverage on offer.
• Market orders only, at first. With no limit orders at launch, every trade pays the spread and any slippage. Strategies with small targets suffer most. See how much slippage to assume.

You can backtest a gold, oil, index or crypto strategy in Strategy Lab on 1-minute to daily candles, with costs, an unseen period and Monte Carlo. Then check its worst drawdown against the leverage you plan to use. The free Monte Carlo simulator shows the range of drawdowns the same trades could produce.

For the US side of the same trend, see our coverage of the CFTC clearing single-stock perpetual futures and ICE and Hyperliquid perps in the US.

We'll update this post when Wealthsimple launches perps and publishes fees and eligibility.