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I do a similar thing myself to exchange currencies. My broker will let me buy a stock in Canadian dollars on the Toronto stock market, and then sell it a few days later in US dollars on the US stock market. And vice versa.

Many Canadian companies trade on both. Shopify is another that you may be more familiar with (though I don’t use that one).

You take some volatility risk over those few days, but on average, you save a lot on fees and make a bit of money over those days. Over enough transactions, even the volatility averages out.

How large the spread between two stable currencies USD/CAD can be? Compared to USD and Bitcoin.

If you’re a bank converting millions, you get good rates.

When you’re converting 0-$100k at a bank, they charge you 1.5% - 3% (for lower amounts).

That seems like a second-order of complexity over simply buying Canadian dollars with US dollars and vice versa. Is there a benefit I'm missing?

Saving 1-2% in currency exchange fees.

If you really need to minimize that risk then you coordinate the exchange on SMS or something. Intra-exchange transfers are instant. The risk is really low almost all of the time.

People generally do not go from $0 to $50,000 playing roulette either.