20 Things You Didn’t Know about Bitpanda
If you are into trading cryptocurrencies, then you’ve probably heard of Bitpanda. This up-and-coming cryptocurrency purchasing site has been around for a few years, and they are gaining traction and a dedicated user base. In fact, over nine hundred thousand people trust Bitpanda for their cryptocurriences needs. Let’s take a deeper dive into the top twenty things you don’t know about Bitpanda.
20. Focused on Eurozone
Vienna-based Bitpanda is available in many places around the world, but it focuses on the Eurozone. The full suite of services and options is more available in about fifty-four countries as of this publication, though they are expanding. However, some features may be limited by the user’s location. For example, as this service expands to new areas, Bitpanda is sometimes unable to verify people in the new region initially. Resultantly, customers from newer service areas may have limited options for deposits or lower trade limits. Plus, Bitpanda must conform to each nation’s laws and standards to do business. Local legislation varies.
19. Eurocentric
If you live in America or are a US citizen, this is not the platform for you. Although Valar Ventures, an investment firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, a U.S. Tech billionaire, just invested a huge sum in Bitpanda, according to CNBC, it does not serve crypto customers here. Section 2.4 of Bitpanda’s legal disclaimer states that this is for ‘regulatory reasons’ but gives no further explanation. Hopefully, a US Bitpanda service will be available soon, but they cannot verify American users for now.
18. Crypto to Crypto
Buying crypto with fiat money or legally recognized tender such as the euro or the dollar is common. Finding a good company that allows crypto to crypto trading is a bit less simple. Bitpanda not only supports crypto to crypto trading, but they manage to do so in a surprising in 54 countries. You can easily trade your BTC for ETH or vice versa on Bitpanda. So long as you have a coin that Bitpanda permits, you can swap it for any other coin they also carry. Making things simpler and more accessible seems to be one of the main focuses of this company, and they’ve found impressive success with that strategy.
17. Growing Every Month
One of the incredible things about Bitpanda is that it adds new coins almost every month. However, that is not the only way they’re growing. With the help of Valar Ventures, this relatively young crypto-plus company has tripled its valuation. Moreover, they anticipate substantially more growth this year with the new twenty-four-hour trading platform.
16. Get Help
Arguably the most important thing about any service is whether you can get assistance when you need it. Bitpanda has a highly functional helpdesk feature. You can send emails to the company with ease, and they are known for responding within twenty-four hours. If you’ve ever tried to get help with a traditional brokerage, you understand how difficult it can be. Even when you can call a company, the operators are not bankers or brokers, and they can only offer minimal assistance. Meanwhile, it can take days or even weeks to hear something useful back from the people you actually need to speak with.
15. Unofficial Start
Bitpanda wasn’t always ‘Bitpanda.’ In fact, when the company started in 2014, they went by the moniker Coinimal. For several years Coinimal, later Bitpanda operator without a license. The company’s regulatory status was, at best unclear. Just two years ago, in April of 2019, the Austrian Financial Market Authority finally issued the growing company a Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) license to provide fintech and payment services in the Eurozone.
14. It’s So Shiny
Bitpanda may have started as a cryptocurrency exchange, but they have rapidly become much more. You can now use the Bitpanda Metals service to trade precious metals. Like crypto-Bitpanda, the service is incredibly user-friendly. Creating a more accessible metals trading platform is no small feat.
13. Payment Methods
Bitpanda has numerous easy-to-use payment methods. Among these are Skrill Cash for Bitpanda On The Go and regular credit and debit cards. They also accept iDEAL Zimpler, EPS GiroPay Sofort Neteller, and SEPA Bank transfers. Giving consumers access to crypto and other trading platforms through multiple pay forms is another way this innovative company makes a name for itself.
12. Austria’s Unicorn
It’s no secret that Austria holds plenty of wealth, so it would be a fair guess to say that the country has a few Unicorn startups under its wing. However, that guess would be wrong. Bitpanda is Austrias very first unicorn business. For those unfamiliar with the term, a business unicorn isn’t a fantasy creature. Unicorns are privately held companies with a net worth of over a billion dollars. Some famous examples include Bytedance (which owns TikTok), SpaceX, Noom, and Reddit. At the rate it’s growing, Bitpanda could be a decacorn before the end of the year. Sadly, that also means you cannot buy stock in Bitpanda.
11. Bitpanda Brokerage
On most trading platforms, you only interact with other traders. Bitpanda saw that this was too limiting. Their solution was simple and elegant. Bitpanda Brokerage allows you to buy and sell currencies more directly. However, customers wishing to take advantage of this feature will pay a premium above the market price.
10. Good To-Go
Since Bitpanda is a Vienna-based business, you’d expect them to have some additional services in Austria. Happily, you’d be correct. Bitpanda To Go is available in post offices around the country. You can purchase coupon codes for cash value and redeem them on Bitpanda. Most users have easy access to their cards and accounts, but you never know what will happen in life. Sometimes you need to turn fiat cash into crypto before a price goes up. Investors who wanted Dogecoin during the recent boom know what it’s like to try and trade quickly while the currency is hot. This technique might seem unusual, but it’s useful if you cannot utilize another payment system quickly.
9. Trusted
Trustpilot is the go-to source for information about companies. They base their reputation on real reviews from people who have done business with those companies. It’s not hard to see that Bitpanda’s Trustpilot rating is high. At four and a half out of five stars, they have thousands of reviews, and few are less than five stars. Moreover, Bitpanda responds to both good and bad reviews, indicating that they care about their customer’s satisfaction deeply.
8. Easy To Use
Are you new to crypto exchanges or perhaps a bit less than totally tech-savvy? You’re not alone. It can be daunting to jump into any investing platform. That goes double for the newer crypto exchanges, which are not known for being good to beginners. There’s a lot of tech jargon in the new(ish) cryptocurrency world, and it can all overwhelm the unwary quickly. In its ongoing efforts to create and maintain a platform anyone can use easily, Bitpanda has created a comprehensive yet simple solution. You can invest, browse, and even self-educate with this stellar service. You can even use a debit card to spend your crypto in shops like other fiat money.
7. Get Verified
Let’s not pretend that verification is easy for most services. It can take days or even weeks to get approved to trade on a new platform. Typically you need to send in a lot of pictures, and then you wait… and wait. By the time the crypto exchange accepts your money, the coin you wanted has crashed, or it’s become prohibitively expensive. The system needs work. Bitpanda tackled that issue as well. Not only do they offer video and ID verification, but they do it fast. Most new traders will be able to use the platform by the next day. However, if you are in a hurry, you can pay a small fee for expedited service and get started sooner. Rapid approval is the smartest way to get trading faster and avoid those missed opportunities.
6. Bitpanda Savings
Most exchanges are focused on buying and selling. While that is also true for Bitpanda, this exchange offers a unique take on purchasing crypto if you choose to enroll. Bitpanda Savings, unlike manual purchasing, does all the work for you. Rather than putting in an order and waiting for it to fill, you can arrange to make automatic purchases. All you need to do is set the time, date, and currency you prefer. Once you have an active account, Bitpanda Savings does the rest. You can buy more currency while you quite literally sleep. Set it up as a recurring purchase, and you’ll have an automatic crypto savings plan unlike any other.
5. Very Low Fees
Bitpanda has extremely reasonable fees. In fact, buying and selling Bitcoin on Bitpanda is a mere 1.49%. Better still, you can get a twenty percent reduction in cost if you pay with BEST, the Bitpanda currency. Plus, the premiums are automatically included in the purchase price, so there will never be any surprise additional charges. Maker and taker fees are also reasonable when you upgrade to Bitcoin Pro. The taker fee is 0.15%, while the maker fee is set at 0.1%, and they do not exceed that threshold. Moreover, you get a sixty-second price guarantee when trading on Bitpanda for most currencies and a ten-second guarantee for BEST or Pantos (PAN). Additionally, you can use Bitpanda Swap to trade currency and ensure you get the best prices.
4. Go Pro
Bitpanda has a professional option as well. Bitpanda Pro allows professional traders and businesses to connect bots to the API for trading. While the general services are incredibly newbie-friendly, Pro is designed with bigger businesses in mind. Experienced traders will find what they can also get lower rates depending on their thirty-day volume. Considering how reasonable the rates are already, that’s an impressive bonus.
3. You Can Upgrade your Security
Bitpanda offers a fairly secure platform that has a fantastic integrated security system. They require a basic, non-negotiable anti-money laundering (AML) verification. Plus, Bitpanda has mandatory know your customer (KYC). Still, you can upgrade your personal security level within the service for those who are overly cautious. It’s always smart to ensure you only check your accounts through the authorized official site, but you can take things a step further. Enable the 2FA or Two-Factor-Authentication, and you can rest easy knowing your crypto is inaccessible to outside parties. Just make certain you don’t keep a physical copy of your login and authentication data lying around.
2. Never Been Hacked
It is no secret that quite a few cryptocurrency exchanges have been hacked. Data breaches and other issues happen virtually every day. Some are minor, and others are worth millions. According to Selfkey, in 2019 alone, twelve different crypto exchanges were hacked, and the damage was massive. “…$292,665,886 worth of cryptocurrency and 510,000 user logins were stolen.” There is a crypto exchange that has never been hacked. Bitpanda has truly top-tier security, and one of its major boasting points is that they have never been hacked. As unbelievable as it sounds, it’s true.
1. Bitpanda is Reliable
With so many crypto exchanges available, it can be a chore to determine who is reliable and which services have seen multiple hacks this year. Naturally, we all want our money to stay safe, or as safe as investment money can be anyhow. Hacks like the Bitfinex debacle reported on Marketwatch that cost that exchange sixty-five million dollars and damaged the entire cryptocurrency industries’ reputation make reliability all the more vital. According to Captaincoin, a deep dive into how Bitpanda stacks up against better-known and older rival Binance yielded some surprising results. Bitpanda is more reliable. COmbined with their hack-free status, it’s a no-brainer to choose this service when you’re in the market to trade crypto in the Eurozone.
Final Thoughts
As crypto exchanges go, Bitpanda has a solid handle on what their user base wants and needs. The fact that this service has never had a hacking incident is awe-inspiring. Whether you are looking to make your first purchase or you want to expand through a simple, accessible platform with pro-level services, Bitpanda is a great option for trading cryptocurrencies and metals in the Eurozone.