Thank you to the chair and thank you to the committee for inviting us to attend today.
I'll start off with a few introductory remarks about Wealthsimple. Wealthsimple is a financial services company committed to helping Canadians achieve financial freedom no matter who they are or how much they have. We do that by building powerful financial tools for people to grow and manage their money. Our products are low-cost, intuitive, and available online, which we believe is essential to help Canadians adopt good financial habits.
We provide our services to more than 2.5 million Canadians. We employ more than a thousand people in nine provinces across the country, despite being founded in only 2014, when we began as an automated investment manager. Our services have since evolved to meet the multiple financial needs of our clients. We still offer professionally managed portfolios and have added self-directed trading, saving and spending, tax filing, and, as of 2020, a cryptocurrency platform.
In August of 2020, Wealthsimple became the first crypto platform to register with Canadian securities administrators. This required us to demonstrate high standards of disclosure, financial resilience and investor protection. Crypto is a legitimate and compelling emerging asset class, worth over $2 trillion and owned by millions of Canadians. We believe those Canadians deserve the same protections they would expect regarding any other investment.
Our clients' behaviour has substantiated that view. Contrary to the popular narrative regarding crypto investors, Wealthsimple crypto clients tend to invest cautiously and for the long term. Clients tend to invest small amounts. Almost half of clients who have bought crypto through Wealthsimple have never sold.
One vital piece of our crypto platform is a program of robust anti-money laundering, or AML, to guard against financial crime and the financing of terrorism. As well as being registered with FINTRAC since our launch, we have sophisticated tools, experienced AML professionals and robust processes for blockchain transaction monitoring.
With regard to the Ottawa protest, our legal and AML teams became aware in early February of media reports about fundraising efforts, including fundraising efforts using Bitcoin. On February 10 the Ontario Superior Court issued an order under the Criminal Code freezing property relating to a fundraiser for the protest on the grounds that it was related to alleged criminal activity. Later, following the issuance of the emergency order on February 15, the RCMP identified specific Bitcoin wallet addresses associated with alleged criminal activity. On February 18 we were notified of a second court order obtained by private parties freezing certain assets, including Bitcoin, related to fundraising efforts. In each case, our in-house AML expertise and blockchain intelligence tools enabled us to rapidly respond with appropriate controls.
In our view, recent events provide compelling evidence that far from the Wild West, as Mr. Walper also alluded to, that is often imagined, crypto is an important and promising technology that allows for a degree of transparency and consumer protection that is at least comparable to traditional finance. In fact, the transparent nature of a public blockchain has several advantages over conventional banking in the inherent ability to track and audit flows and transactions.
For our part, regulated crypto platforms like Wealthsimple are responsible actors committed to compliance with Canadian law. We are aware that some foreign platforms appear less committed to compliance with Canadian law despite serving millions of Canadian customers. We believe this strengthens the case for the federal government to start engaging with the domestic crypto sector to develop a clear and positive regulatory framework for crypto in Canada. It is strategically important to Canadian innovation, competitiveness and security that we have a strong domestic crypto industry. Wealthsimple is ready to play our part in helping to build it.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.