Bitpanda Review – A complete Review of the Bitpanda Platform 2019

Bitpanda Platform Review Summary

Bitpanda could be called the “European Coinbase” and for good reason. It clearly tries to reach the same client-base. Don’t let this analogy fool you though. Bitpanda offers and will offer so much more than other exchanges or even Coinbase does. In this lengthy Bitpanda review, we will try to guide you through everything that Bitpanda has to offer!

Clear vision, low fees, strong regulatory framework, above-average security, and compliance. These are the words that describe Bitpanda the best. The platform aims to offer the best service in the industry for the lowest possible fees and so far they seem to be succeeding. With a staggeringly successful IEO that raised 43.6 Million Euros showing strong interest, Bitpanda is sure to position itself as a strong alternative (or replacement) to Coinbase and other platforms.

You will find services at Bitpanda that no other exchanges offer at this time like buying Metals (Gold, Silver), vouchers (for gifts or buying without KYC) or two native ecosystem tokens (BEST, Pantos). Bitpanda also offers all the usual traditional services, like an excellent exchange, easy to use dashboard for investing, easy deposits, swapping, savings plans, smartphone apps, institutional limits and more. Their roadmap also contains a launchpad and other services that are in development. As it stands now, there is very little reason to use anything else besides Bitpanda, especially for European clients.

A complete Bitpanda Platform Review

Bitpanda is a trading platform that offers cryptocurrency as well as precious metal exchange such as Bitcoin, Ether, Gold, and Silver. If this is your first time opening the website, you will notice a rotating bar with all the assets available for trade as well as their prices. We can get acquainted with what is currently being traded on the platform right away. Its homepage generates a trustworthy feeling with the use of light, gentle colors and professional design.

Next, let’s click on the services tab to find out what exactly can we expect from this platform.

The Bitpanda Platform

The first item on the list is the Bitpanda Platform itself that takes us directly to the homepage.

The Bitpanda Global Exchange

I wouldn’t do justice to the Bitpanda platform team in this review if we didn’t talk about their latest feature. The Bitpanda Global Exchange is a new advanced trading platform that aims to improve the current Bitpanda Platform trading experience. It comes with the lowest fees in the industry at very good liquidity.

When you first open the Bitpanda Global Exchange, you are prompted with a message. A warning sign to invest cautiously into assests, as well as a notice to do your research before entering this advanced exchange.

The Bitpanda Global Exchange interface

Bitpanda calls the new Global Exchange a truly robust platform. Unlike regular trading, this Exchange offers a large quantity of information, something experienced traders would find very accommodating. At the very top, you can choose which market you want to participate in.

It shows only key information regarding the assets. Such as last price, volume currently being traded and the 24 hour change. Before we start trading, we need to make a deposit into the Bitpanda exchange, so we have some crypto to trade with.

The depositing process

The deposit button is located under your profile icon in the top right corner.

By clicking on the deposit button, you will be prompted with a choice of currency to deposit. The Bitpanda Global exchange has a separate wallet from the regular Bitpanda platform. However, both are linked so you can easily transfer currencies between them, as you can see in the pictures below.

For testing purposes, we have chosen Ethereum. Here BGE offers you a choice of where to deposit from, an external source or from your very own Bitpanda Platform wallet.

One thing to note is that the transfers between the two platforms are completely free! However, when depositing from external sources small fees may apply.

Just by clicking deposit now, your currencies are immediately available on the platform!

The Bitpanda Global Exchange Buy and Sell interface

To the left of your screen, you are greeted with the exchange interface. Here, you can set buy and sell orders. You can also set Limit orders and Stop orders. Unlike the regular Bitpanda Platform, the Global exchange doesn’t allow trades below 10 EUR. The fees for trading are 0,1% of the traded value.

The Bitpanda Global Exchange Order book

This is the BGE order book. This can serve as a lead to how other people are trading an asset, what buy/sell orders they place and what amounts they use. You can also click on one of the orders and it will paste the price into your buy/sell tab. That way you can simply click whichever prices/limits you like best!

The Flowchart

The BGE Flowchart represents all trades happening on the platform in real-time. We can see that there are large quantities being traded continuously. Refer to your flow chart regularly, it has been designed in such a way to provide you with the most crucial information. Just looking at market prices and current 24-hour trends is not enough if you want to deep dive into trading.

The Bitpanda Global Exchange market

There is a trade on the BGE almost every minute of the day, and we are just looking at the Bitcoin market. The marketplace history serves as a pointer as to which assets are on the up and which ones are crashing. It offers a detailed preview of every transaction conducted on the Exchange.

Bitpanda Global Exchange fees!

The Bitpanda Global Exchange offers lower fees the higher the quantity you use. If you trade a total of over 50.000 BTC per month you can reach almost half the original fee of 0,1%. This offers a rather big incentive to stick to trading on the BGE platform, as 0.05% on large trades can make all the difference in your profit margins.

Bitpanda Ecosystem Token – BEST

The BEST token represents a utility currency on the Bitpanda platform. Offering extra benefits such as discounts, launch-pad access and much more. You can read more about the benefits here. BEST launched in August 2019 as Bitpanda’s most successful European IEO. The Bitpanda Ecosystem token is available for trade on the Bitpanda Global exchange. The launch of the token was extremely successful due to the benefits it provides when trading with it on the Bitpanda Global Exchange.

The BEST token was almost immediately sold raising over 43,6 million EUR in capital for the Bitpanda platform. Bitpanda has future plans to expand on the BEST token, adding additional benefits to the currency thus increasing the value of the platform. BEST is a great example of a platform investing in itself and continuously growing and getting ahead of the competition. Read about Bitpandas vision of the token here

Bitpanda Savings

The Bitpanda Savings service is an easier way to make frequent investments for the purpose of increasing your portfolio. It works as an automated broker. Simply set the frequency of purchases and the savings-plan will do the work for you. It’s designed to create an automated and painless way to build up your crypto wealth. You do not need to log in daily or weekly and the Savings Plan will do the work for you.

Bitpanda Metals

This is a service that only Bitpanda offers in the crypto space. It makes complete sense though as both Bitcoin and metals behave very similarly, they are both a hedge against the traditional markets. Bitpanda offers you a simple way to purchase real precious metals. According to the bio, the metals you purchase are stored in a safety vault in Switzerland. Just like the other goods traded on the website, precious metals can be added to the Bitpanda savings plan. The fees for purchasing gold is 0.5% regardless if you sell or buy, with a 0.0125% weekly upkeep for the storage and insurance. Fees for silver are higher with 2.5% for buying and 2% for selling, while the weekly upkeep is at 0.025% per week. All precious metals purchases are duty-free which means there is no VAT on transactions.

Bitpanda Swap

Bitpanda swap is a service that allows users to swap directly, good-for-good. It is exchanging goods under their current prices on the market. The swap works in a simple 3 step process that immediately updates your portfolio and your wallet. Despite it only being traded on the BGE, the BEST token can be swapped for in your current Bitpanda Wallet. Then you can simply deposit it into your BGE wallet. These cross-platform conveniences make for a simpler and better customer experience.

The platform offers you information on the amount you are swapping. For instance, 0.00605 ETH is approximately 15% of my ETH wallet. Also, swapping for currencies on the platform is always done according to current platform values of the assets. That’s why there are no fees when swapping.

Bitpanda To Go

It is a truly innovative service offered almost exclusively through Bitpanda in the country of Austria. This service is a part of a network of 400 post branches and 1350 post partners around Austria. You simply go into one of these branches, use your real-life cash to purchase goods (crypto or metals) on the Bitpanda market. Then you can redeem the purchase immediately on the website and start trading. Although, this method involves an additional 2.99% fee for Bitcoin.

Bitpanda Plus

Bitpanda Plus is an exclusive feature for high-volume trading customers. Since the Bitpanda regular accounts have hard limits on amounts you can purchase or sell, the Plus option allows customers to increase their default limits. Bitpanda requires you to fill out a simple form, so they can review if you fit the requirements for Bitpanda Plus. The Plus system offers high-quality KYC and AML/Compliance as well as a state-of-the-art security system.

Bitpanda platform Affiliate program

As with most exchanges, Bitpanda offers an excellent affiliate program. You can get an affiliate link from Bitpanda that you can place on your website and even your social media. Through a cookie logging system, Bitpanda will keep track of all the revenue your referrals make and award you 10-20% of their revenue. German residents may not be referred though.

However, the rest of the world appears to be available.

Bitpanda App

Last, the Bitpanda app appears to be supported only on Android. This allows you, the user, to engage in the Bitpanda ecosystem via your mobile device. The application uses their strong API and secure offline wallets to deliver to you a safe and reliable experience.

On the forefront of Research – Pantos

Pantos is a project by the Bitpanda platform developers in collaboration with the Technical University of Vienna. It is a Token Atomic Swap Technology (TAST) project that will be capable of performing crucial transactions in the future. It is an open-source, open-innovation driven scientific project. The projects main purpose is to foster cooperation and promote synergy between different blockchain platforms. The Atomic Swap technology has been used in the past on prototype systems, which lack user-friendliness thus hindering their progress. Pantos is supposed to eliminate that.

The process of releasing Pantos will be threefold.

• First, it will be released on the Bitpanda platform in order to allow shifting between multiple blockchains.
• Next, a public API will be released to facilitate automatic shifting of PAN between blockchains
• Finally, atomic swaps and Lighting networks will be utilized to fully decentralize PAN trading.

If you want to be on the very front of crypto trading, getting acquainted with the Pantos project is a must, as it will completely change the way we currently trade. You can read up about the project here

Signing up on Bitpanda

Sign up on Bitpanda

Let’s review the Bitpanda platform from the very beginning. Bitpanda offers a simple and easy to fill out the form for registering. With the standard format of Name, Email address, and password. Something that immediately pops out is the fact that you have to agree to 3 different TOC. The Bitpanda Terms of Service, Bitpanda Metals Terms of Service and the Bitpanda Group Privacy Policy. After browsing through them, they are incredibly detailed and precise. Right from the get-go, I get a strong feeling of security.

Upon creating and verifying your account through e-mail the website presents us with the choice of going to the Bitpanda Platform or the Bitpanda Global Exchange.

The verification process

Something which is quite normal for most online platforms is for your access to be limited until you verify your account. This is something you want to do immediately so you can get full access. However, with Bitpanda you are almost forced to go through the verification route if you want to start trading because you cannot deposit any money without it.

The process begins with an enlarged form, similar to the registering one.

After completing both forms, a curious message pops up. Bitpanda has, apparently, two different verification levels. For the purpose of this Bitpanda review, we tried both options.

a) Light Verification, where you submit your personal documents, chosen in the form above. However, this only allows you to trade without features such as Savings, Metals, and Swap. Also, this only allows deposits and withdrawals through a bank transfer

b) Full Verification, is a full Video verification. This unlocks all Bitpanda features and adds the instant payment methods such as credit cards, Sofort, Skrill and Giropay. The full verification takes around 15 minutes.

Video Verification is only available at specific times for specific languages. Something that makes this platform slightly harder to use for non-European users.

On the other hand, the light verification is extremely user-friendly and easy to do!

For the light verification, you also need to have a camera plugged in. Unlike most platforms where they will ask you to take a picture of you holding your ID/Passport with one hand and a special code with the other. Bitpanda does the verification through a video engine. As I did not have a camera plugged in while reviewing the website, I took the verification to my phone and attempt the verification on it. I was pleasantly surprised when it asked me to verify my new browser through an email.

The process is straightforward. You place your ID document in front of your camera, then the platform asks for your face to confirm your documents ownership. An easy two-step process towards unlocking most of the benefits on the platform.

The Bitpanda Platform Dashboard review

I am pleasantly surprised to see the assets at the top organized in a neat way. I can scroll through possible trading assets and see their current and past prices. By simply ticking the 1Y, 1M, 1W, 1D, buttons I can see the trend for that specific asset. Although it does not go into deeper details, it’s a nice introduction to trading, even for novice traders.

Next up, we have our Portfolio and Wallet

As seen in the picture above, we have a brief preview of our current portfolio and investments. With similar time-period buttons, as the tracker on top of the page, that allow us to monitor our portfolio closely. On the right side, the dashboard presents us with our current fiat Wallet and its balance. These features offer a quick peek into your current balances on the platform. On the bottom right, you can find a big empty box which would only be useful if you opened a savings plan. I don’t like this box as most people won’t create a savings plan and it takes up a lot of space. Overall it’s a nice and clean UI with the most important information tightly packed in the center of attention.

Lastly, at the bottom right of the Dashboard, we see our transactions

A transaction bar can be quite handy when trading on a larger scale with a long list of assets. Also, it’s complimentary with the Savings service, as this is a handy way to track your savings account.

The Bitpanda Wallet

For both the novice and experienced trader, one of the most important features of a platform is the Wallet. It needs to be easily accessible, and it needs to have a handy filter option for easier browsing through your assets. On Bitpanda, you can find the Wallet in the top left corner of your homepage, right next to the dashboard.

The Wallet feature is quite well organized. At the top, we have an extremely important filtering function. Most trading platforms have extremely complicated drop-down menus that are hard to maneuver. The filtering button is supposed to be a time-saver and yet, on most of these trading platforms, it’s quite the opposite of that. I am extremely pleased with the simpleness and adequacy of the filtering option on this platform.

On Bitpanda, the Wallet/Portfolio is structured by the popularity of the asset. With Fiat currencies at the very top.

Each of the currency boxes have their own easy-to-access button. Located in the top right corner of each box. For each box, there is a different function, in correlation with the asset. For instance, the Fiat Euro wallet has a deposit functionality that opens a deposit window. On the other hand, the BTC Wallet has a trading functionality that opens a trading window.

At the very bottom of the page, you can add a new Wallet of the same assets.

This allows you to create multiple wallets of the same currency or asset. Simply click the Add New Wallet button and a pop-up box will appear.

Select the asset from the drop-down menu and give your new wallet a name. It’s as simple as that!

As we mentioned before, each Box contains functionality, when clicked, which allows depositing, withdrawing or trading.

First, let’s check out the functionality of one of the Fiat currencies.

This is your Euro Wallet. Here you can buy, sell, withdraw and deposit euros. The first tab of the transaction Bar shows all transactions. You can filter out only the transactions you want to see by clicking on one of the “Pending” “Bought” “Sold” “Deposits” or “Withdrawals” tabs.

As this is a new account, your only available option is to deposit. Something you cannot do, until you deposit money by opening Wallet details in the top right corner and following the instructions.

The Wallet details feature is a walk-through of how you can deposit into your FIAT accounts.

This is basically a detailed preview of how you need to fill out your FIAT currency transfer at your local bank facility. For ease-of-use, the Bitpanda platform allows you to simply scan a QR code, something that is particularly useful when using a mobile phone to access your e-banking account. However, if you are not using an e-banking account, you can download the PDF and print it out. Then simply hand it to a teller in your local branch and he will execute the transaction for you, if you are doing the transfer offline that is.

At the very bottom of the page, Bitpanda offers additional details for non-EU countries. When transferring from a non-EU to an EU country, details such as SWIFT, Bank name and addresses are required.

How to Deposit Fiat to Bitpanda

Depositing is quite simple on this platform. Most platforms allow to you attach a credit card to your account. In my opinion, this “convenience” creates additional risk as the moment your account is hacked your card can be emptied and sent away as Crypto. By only having a bank-transfer feature, Bitpanda adds additional security for its customers.

Bank Transfer

It’s simple. Bank transfers require information from both parties and are one-time purchases, unlike credit card deposits. That way, any misconduct from either side can have legitimate legal repercussions and a way to revert the fraudulent purchase.

Let’s check out the deposit function for the Fiat currency Euro.

As mentioned before, the only way to deposit funds is for free is via a Bank Transfer. The only inconvenience this feature offers is the waiting period between deposits. Normally, for EU transfers it takes anywhere from 1-2 business days and for non-EU transfers 3-4 business days.

By clicking the deposit button, you are presented with a pop-up box, which is quite unnecessary because in most cases it presents us with a singular choice of Bank transfer.

Once you select the only choice available, a simple form appears. You can use the preset numbers at the top to directly go to the transfer menu. On the other hand, you can also manually type in a number.

You can click this button to include or exclude fees from the transfer.

However, no matter what sum you put in, and whether to include or exclude fees the Fees part below the sum does not change. Instead, it provides you with an unclear explanation.

After configuring everything, you proceed to the summary screen.

After selecting both tick boxes and clicking confirm. You will receive an email detailing your transaction and how to proceed with it. A PDF with the form appears on your screen as well as an email with the Bank Transfer Information.

The payment reference in red is extremely vital to be included in your transfer. That reference number is how Bitpanda links the deposit to your account. So make sure not to forget it!!!!

Deposit via Skrill, Neteller

You can also deposit via Skrill or Neteller, however, I would advise against it as you would lose 4% after each deposit and it can add up when your goal is to build an investment portfolio. That being said, the process of depositing funds via Skrill is the same as described above for the Bank transfer.

Other Methods

Other deposit methods work similarly to the Bank transfer or Skrill options, so much so that there is little need to further explain it in this Bitpanda review.

Deposit Cryptocurrencies

Begin, by clicking on the cryptocurrency tab in the wallet.

You will be presented with a similar page like the one with fiat currencies. However, this time with much brighter colors and more menu tabs. For crypto, additionally, you can swap, send and add to your savings account.

Similarly to our fiat transfers, we will be presented with information on how to deposit our external cryptocurrencies into our current wallet.

The Prices tab

The Prices tab is the most used feature available on this platform. The prices tab shows us the current trading value of the assets available for trade. However, just showing the prices is not enough. We need to know the flow chart of the asset, as well as the changes within the selected time period and the market availability of the currency.

The prices tab opens a straight forward panel. We can easily filter out all the unnecessary options should we need to. It also allows us to track the prices and flow charts by periods of year, month, week, and day. Something that can come very handy when entering the market of a new currency or asset. Apart from the standard filters, Bitpanda offers us the ability to browse the assets via a search bar as well.

We can see the name, price, market cap, change and the chart of all assets available. At the right, we have a “…” button that offers us a different perspective on the current prices.

We can prioritize by viewing under “Sell” “Swap” “Send” and “Deposit”.

Price Alerts

This is an extremely important feature for any trader or investor. By clicking on this option we are presented with a menu.

Under this option, we can set an email notification when our asset has reached the target price. This is effective when waiting for an asset to go down in price in order to make a purchase. On the other hand, this can be used to wait for an asset to go up in price in order to sell. Adding price alerts to your most traded assets is a key feature to make the best trades at the right time.

Bitpanda Charts

By simply left-clicking on an asset, we can get a closer look at it. It opens a large chart page with the price fluctuations, our price alerts, and our current portfolio.

Apart from that, we can open the chart in a more interactive way by clicking the advanced chart option at the top right. The feed is taken from Tradinview.

This will allow us to draw, measure, and better predict the direction of the market. Incredibly handy feature added by the Bitpanda team.

Redeeming a voucher

If you want to stay as anonymous as possible or if you received a gift in the form of a voucher, then Bitpanda offers you an easy way to redeem these gift cards.

To start this process, begin by clicking on the redeem voucher button. Many platforms might have affiliates that will distribute their vouchers through their branches, however, Bitpanda has it’s own vouchers available through the To Go function explained earlier.

You can do this, by selecting the asset, for which you have a purchased voucher.

If you have multiple wallets of the same currency, you have to select which wallet you want the currency to be deposited to. Otherwise, you will be directed to the 2nd picture.

Simply type in the voucher code and click redeem. Instantly, the value of the voucher will be added to your wallet and you will be good to go to start trading with the asset. Unlike bank transfer, the redeem function allows for immediate trading upon depositing.

Your account settings

When clicking the panda icon in the top right corner, your account settings will be shown.

The first item will open your current account settings and preferences. Here you can set your language and currency. Apply for the Bitpanda Newsletter and Coin update. Turn on the desktop notifications for transactions, price alerts, and important information. This feature can be quite handy if you are working on a separate task on your computer and trading is in the background. After that, we have the Advanced chart option which will open the advanced chart instead of the basic one when browsing the prices tab. Lastly, you can choose which price tracker will be available on your homepage. This is quite important when you are trading as prices can vastly differ based on the tracker used.

Your history tab

You can view your orders and all available transactions on your account. In a separate, clean spaced tab.

Your savings plan

This offers you another path to creating and managing your savings plan features.

Contact list

You can add people to your contact list. By adding people, you can create your own network of trading partners.

You can also add them by their crypto addresses.

Bitpanda Security

The security tab is one of the most important when it comes to securing your account. Bitpanda offers you multiple security measures in order to protect your assets. We’ve already been acquainted with the email confirmation when accessing a new browser. The platform also offers you to set up Two-Factor-Authentication. This measure requires a code which you will need in order to gain access to your account on different devices.

Account activity

You can view and control who has access to your account. Every time you allow someone to your account via the email confirmation, the entry will be logged into the activity bar. From here you can restrict access to a browser or simply view your past account logins.

At the very bottom of the page is the app activity. Once you install it on your mobile device, it’s activity will be logged on this screen as well.

The Bitpanda API

You can generate API keys for your Bitpanda account. Besides that, you can restrict the key’s scope on trading, transaction, and balances.

Tell-a-friend

The tell a friend feature is similar to the affiliate program. By using your generated Bitpanda referral link, your friends can join you on the platform. For each friend, that you refer and if they trade a minimum of 10 EUR on the platform, Bitpanda will award both of you an additional 10 EUR. Once again, recruiting friends who reside in Germany is not allowed.

Closing remarks

If we had to use one word to summarize Bitpanda platform for this review, it would have to be simple. The platform focuses on making the user experience as frictionless as possible. Online trading platforms have a tendency to overwhelm the user with information from the get-go, which usually results in poor user experience. Bitpanda offers you the same amount of information in a very well-constructed manner.

Bitpanda also gives its users an option for additional security. The API keys and the two-factor authentication are industry standards when it comes to protecting users. Additional safety measures usually directly contribute to increases in the number of trades, as the customers are better protected.

As we mentioned before, the only available depositing methods if you chose the light verification are bank transfer, crypto, and the To-go voucher. If you fully verify yourself depositing becomes easier as new methods open up like Skrill, Neteller, Mastercard, Sofort, etc… The bank transfer and the To-go vouchers are safe and painless methods of depositing. However, they might be complicated to newer users, but Bitpanda does an incredible job educating and helping its customers to deposit their funds.

Bitpanda has an excellent trading structure. It not only allows you to purchase or sell but also to swap and send your items with/to other users. The most interesting feature is the swap function. Instead of having to sell your BTC to FIAT currency and then trading it for metals or different crypto, you can simply swap at current marketplace prices. On top of that, Bitpanda has an alert feature that notifies you once your desired currency, hits your targeted price. This helps you tremendously when waiting for price crashes. To go a step further, you can set up your account to purchase the asset once it hits your desired price.

The Bitpanda Exchange allows you to go one step further than start trading on a highly liquid low fee environment.

The Bitpanda Team

As a final note, I would like to discuss the way the platform is being operated. The team managing this platform is Austrian, a fact that has translated into a get-to-the-point platform design and simple and direct interactions. With the brand new features of the Bitpanda Exchange and the Bitpanda Token, as customers, we get further reassurance that the management is keeping up with the industry. The BEST token is a great way to additionally invest in Bitpanda itself. The fees paid seem rather low compared to others, which in turn makes Bitpanda more reliant on actually keeping clients rather than milking them through fees.

Bitpanda is an amazing platform that offers a lot of functionalities for its users. And we can only recommend it!

Sign up to Bitpanda here!