Bitpanda

Bitpanda is an exchange for digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies and precious metals, based in Austria and founded in 2014. It allows trading between different national currencies like USD, EUR, CHF, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Iota, and others^[1]^[4].

In September 2020, Bitpanda closed a $52 million Series A funding round from Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Peter Thiel^[9].

Overview

Initially, Bitpanda was called Coinimal and its purpose was to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions in the Eurozone. At the end of November 2017, the Bitpanda service supported and implemented SegWit wallets and transactions. SegWit is a technical upgrade of the Bitcoin blockchain protocol, which creates the basis for future improvements in the network, in particular, reducing transaction fees and increasing scalability^[1]^[5].

On Bitpanda there are many ways to use fiat currency to buy cryptocurrency including credit card, debit card, bank transfer, EPS, Giropay, Neteller, Klarna, SEPA, Skrill, and cash (Bitpanda To Go). The company has also entered other markets like gold and silver. At the exchange office, a customer can exchange physical gold, silver, palladium, and platinum for other assets. There are no insurance or storage fees for the first 20 grams of gold, palladium, and platinum and first 200 grams of silver that a customer buys.

Bitpanda has a fee of 1.49% for every transaction. Bitpanda also charges additional fees for other services like storing gold or using certain payment methods.

Aside from regular deposits of national currencies via the Single Euro Payments Area system, as of July 11, 2018, Bitpanda partnered with the Austrian postal service (Österreichische Post) offering vouchers for use on Bitpanda's exchange platform, that can be purchased with cash.

Verifications and Limits

Bitpanda offers two types of verification methods: Light verification and Full verification. With the Light verification, a user can trade and swap all cryptocurrencies on the platform and also pay and withdraw using bank transfer. With Full verification, a user can use all features and services on the platform. It depends on the country where a customer lives^[5]^[7].

Users have limits subjected to their payment method. When a user becomes fully verified, they can have access to the following limits:

Neteller and Skrill provides 10.000 EUR deposit limit to its verified users in 24 hours ;
Credit card, Ideal and Zimpler user's deposit limit is 2.500 EUR in 24 hours ;
SEPA provides 49.999 EUR deposit limit to its verified users in 24 hours and others.

Bitpanda Pro

Bitpanda Pro is an advanced digital asset exchange for institutions, professionals, and businesses where they can trade and connect trading bots to their API to facilitate automatic trading. The Bitpanda Pro exchange is fully regulated and is compliant to AML5. The same account for Bitpanda can also be used on Bitpanda Pro^[8].

Pantos

Pantos is an initiative conceived by the team behind Bitpanda. Launched in collaboration with the Vienna Technical University, the Pantos system is financed via an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) which finally is to be released as an open-source service. As the first multi-blockchain token system, Pantos aims to bring blockchain projects closer together, improve communication between developers, researchers, and users, and set innovative standards for cross-chain token transfers^[6].

In its first year, the Pantos project successfully finished the initial research for Token Atomic Swap Technology (TAST). The Distributed Systems Group at the Vienna University of Technology published four Technical White Papers and developed the TAST research prototype. The team also successfully implemented Pantos (PAN) deposit and withdrawal features on Bitpanda, which allows users to deposit and withdraw Pantos (PAN) as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain.

Bitpanda Ecosystem Token

BEST is the Bitpanda coin, that offers users a wide range of benefits and perks within the Bitpanda ecosystem. BEST is the fuel of the Bitpanda ecosystem, which means that the Bitpanda platform, the Bitpanda Global Exchange and the Bitpanda Launchpad makes heavy use of incorporating BEST and offering users, who hold BEST, exclusive rewards, and perks.

Funding

In September 2020, Bitpanda closed a $52 million Series A funding round from Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Peter Thiel. Vienna-based VC Speedinvest also participated, alongside other unnamed investors. The company will use the cash to expand internationally. It expanded to France, Spain, and Turkey in 2020, and plans to enter additional European markets^[9].

As part of the investment, Valar Ventures' founding partner Andrew McCormack will also join Bitpanda's board.