As the price of Bitcoin climbs to record highs, some Canadians are frantically looking for ways to get into the red-hot crypto market.

“We’ve had a massive amount of interest from retail investors looking to set up accounts,” said Mike Nasser, co-founder of Toronto-based digital currency brokerage Satstreet Inc, in a phone interview.

“The higher the price, the more demand there is,” said Nasser, whose firm, which focuses on high net worth and institutional clients, says it has processed more than $120 million in digital currency trades since launching last year.

Bitcoin soared to what was an all-time high on Monday – before setting yet another record Tuesday - following Tesla Inc.’s disclosure of its US$1.5-billion investment in the cryptocurrency.

“Just [Telsa CEO Elon Musk] putting Bitcoin in his Twitter bio last month sent off a fury of purchasing on our end,” Nasser said.

While downloads of Canadian-based crypto trading apps are surging, many investors and traders are also downloading apps from companies based outside of the country.

According to App Store intelligence firm Apptopia, foreign trading platforms such as Binance, Coinbase, Webull, Uphold and Crypto.com have all seen spikes in downloads this year.

Kraken, a U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange, saw a 192 per cent month-over-month increase in Canadian downloads between December and January, according to Apptopia’s data.

In fact, crypto app demand is outpacing current interest in Canadian banking apps.

Apptopia found that the top crypto trading apps in Canada (Wealthsimple, PayPal, Coinbase, Crypto.com and Binance) added a combined 863,000 new Canadian users in January. By comparison, the top five traditional Canadian banks added 292,000 new app users during the month.