Bitpanda Review

Launched in Austria in 2014, the Bitpanda platform has grown to become one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe. In 2017, they won the award for Best Fintech Startup from the Central European Startup Awards.

Part of the reason for Bitpanda’s success is their dedication to being a very user-friendly trading platform and offering a large number of assets to buy and sell. You can buy dozens of cryptocurrencies here along with precious metals, like gold and silver.

Payment Methods

Bitpanda features a variety of ways for you to buy cryptocurrency. These methods include:

• EPS
• GiroPay
• MasterCard
• Neteller
• OKPay
• SEPA bank transfer
• Skrill
• Sofort
• Visa

Speed of Purchases

The speed of your buys all depends upon the chosen banking methods. If you use credit cards or debit cards, for example, then you’ll receive your crypto instantly. Bank transfers and e-wallets, on the other hand, may take one day or more to complete.

Trading Fees

Bitpanda charges uniform trading fees when you buy and sell cryptocurrencies. You’ll pay a 1.49% fee when purchasing crypto and a 1.29% fee when selling it. These fees aren’t exactly the cheapest in the industry — despite what the website claims.

The deposit charges depend upon the cryptocurrency that’s being purchased. However, these fees remain the same with regard to the individual crypto.

Here are some examples of deposit fees:

• Bitcoin – 0.0001 BTC
• Ethereum – 0.0005 ETH
• Dash – 0.0001 Dash
• Litecoin – 0.0001 LTC

Deposit and Withdrawal Fees

Unusually when compared to most cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitpanda doesn't charge percentage fees when depositing or withdrawing crypto and fiat currency. Instead they charge a flat fee which differs from currency to currency. There is also a minimum withdrawal amount for each currency. You can find all the details of Bitpanda's fees on their site here.

Buying Limits

Your buying limits depend upon what level of verification you’ve achieved. Here are the different limits at each level:

• Starter level – Daily buy & sell limits of €1,000/monthly limits of €7,500.
• Bronze level – Daily buy & sell limits of €1,500/monthly limits of €10,000.
• Gold level – Daily buy & sell limits of €15,000/monthly limits of €300,000.

Starter level requires you to enter and submit simple account details. Bronze level requires email and phone number verification. Gold level requires a photo ID to be uploaded.

Does Bitpanda Hold Your Funds?

Bitpanda does offer a custodian service so they will store your cryptocurrencies if you wish. This custodian service is nice if you’re only buying and selling small amounts of crypto. But as always with cryptocurrency the best solution is to use a dedicated wallet that is compatible with whichever crypto you choose to trade in such as bitcoin or ethereum and make sure that you store the wallet and, more importantly, your keys in the most secure way possible.

Privacy Features

The privacy features at Bitpanda are decent. They require you to set up 2 factor authentication (2FA) during the registration process.

They also enforce stricter ID requirements as you move up in buying limits. However, Bitpanda isn’t as tough as certain other exchanges when it comes to privacy and verification.

Which Coins Are Supported?

Bitpanda offers plenty of different cryptocurrencies on their platform. Some of these include:

• Bitcoin
• Ethereum
• Ripple
• Bitcoin Cash
• Litecoin
• Stellar
• Iota
• Tezos
• NEM
• Basic Attention Token
• Komodo

In addition to being able to buy crypto, you can even purchase precious metals such as Gold, silver, platinum.

Which Countries Can Use Bitpanda?

Currently, only European residents can buy and sell on Bitpanda. The mass number of restricted countries are strange when considering that this isn’t even a regulated exchange. However, Bitpanda might be anticipating future regulations and trying to stay on the good side of international laws.

Bitpanda App

Bitpanda also offers its users an app to buy digital assets on the go. With the Bitpanda App, users can monitor and manage their portfolio in real time right from their smartphone.

The Bitpanda App is available for iOS and Android.

Bitpanda Pro

For those investors with a bit more experience may want to consider using Bitpanda Pro. Bitpanda Pro is an exchange for professionals and businesses within the cryptocurrency world where they can trade and connect trading bots to our API.

Bitpanda Ecosystem Token

Bitpanda Ecosystem Token or BEST is Bitpanda's native token for use in their services. Users who pay their trading premiums with BEST benefit from lower fees. Users of BEST bitpanda benefit from 20% lower deposit fees when using credit cards and 25% lower deposit fees when using the SOFORT coin. This small addition to their services really shows their commitment to adaptation and change within financial technology.

Bitpanda Academy

Moving one step further from Bitpanda's goal of making cryptocurrency easy to use and accessible to all Bitpanda have launched the Bitpanda Academy which is a free and regularly updated eLearning platform so their users can learn all about Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrencies. You can read more about it here.

Verification Process

You can get started at Bitpanda with as little as a basic account. At the Starter level, you’ll be able to buy and sell up to €1,000 in crypto per day.

You need to provide further details in order to boost your limits. You can achieve the Bronze level just by providing your email and phone number. Gold level requires that you upload a visible form of ID.

Customer Support

The Bitpanda customer service team is only available through email. You must submit a support ticket and wait for a response. The website features an extensive set of FAQs that cover most relevant questions and issues. You can find it for yourself here.