Canada’s P2P Crypto Activity Falls as Study-Permit Holder Counts Shrink

Canada’s domestic peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto activity fell from a spring 2024 peak, while study-permit-holder trends tracked closely with P2P activity for three countries since mid-2021; the comparison does not show students caused the decline.

The comparison concerns permit holders from India, China and the Philippines. Canada’s national permit-holder figures cover all nationalities, and the P2P data do not identify which individuals used these transfers.

Canada had approximately 602,115 study-permit holders on Aug. 31, 2026, compared with approximately 1,032,950 in June 2024, a decline of about 42%. The figures are rounded and include permit holders from every country.

New student arrivals also dropped. Canada recorded 65,240 from January through August 2026, 71% fewer than in the same period of 2024. This measure counts people issued a study permit during the month and excludes permit extensions and asylum claimants. It differs from the total number of permit holders in the country.

Canada introduced an annual cap on international student permits in 2024 and later announced further reductions for 2025 and 2026. Its target for new student arrivals in 2026 is 155,000.

Other measures show growth elsewhere in the country’s crypto activity. Canada’s crypto economy expanded 2.3% to $247.7 billion from July 2025 through June 2026. Remittance-sized Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoin transfers from Canada to the three countries reached $2.36 billion, a 141% increase from a year earlier. These broader activity and cross-border transfer figures measure different parts of crypto use.

The figures show a decline in domestic P2P activity alongside growth in total crypto activity and transfers on those three cross-border routes; they do not establish what caused either trend.