Bitpanda is a broker and investment platform for buying, selling, and managing cryptos, stocks and ETFs, crypto indices, metals, and commodities. The platform aims to make investing available to everyone by making simple, easy-to-use financial products that can be accessed from a single platform.
The platform is currently one of the most successful fintech companies in the Eurozone with over 4 million users and 3,000+ digital assets.
However, do these stats make it a good choice for both legacy and crypto investors? Does it truly make investing in cryptos easier?
Our review dives into the nuts and bolts of Bitpanda. We dissect its functions, features, offerings, highlight its pros and cons, and render a verdict for whether the platform is worth your time.
Ready to sign up to Bitpanda? You can do so in four easy steps. Follow along to get started.
Navigate to the website and click on Sign-up at the top right corner of the screen. Alternatively, you can download the mobile app from the Google Play store or Apple’s App store to get started. Note that you may not be able to download the app if you are not within the EU. Provide your name, email address, and password to begin.
Check your email for a confirmation link to complete your profile. Enter the information required and upload an ID or passport. You may also be asked to provide some proof of income or proof of address documents.
To make a deposit, navigate to the Deposit section of your account dashboard. Select the currency you wish to deposit, select a payment service provider, and confirm the transaction.
Once your account has been credited, you may begin purchasing crypto assets.
Bitpanda was founded in Vienna, Austria in 2014 by co-founders Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek, Christian Trummer. The platform was borne from their desire to democratize investments, offering to the masses what was reserved for the wealthy.
Over the last 9 years, the platform has grown to support 9 currencies within the EU as well as the US dollar. Bitpanda is one of the most regulated investment platforms in Europe holding 10 European licenses and registrations. It possesses a PSD2 payment service provider license as well as an E-money license for providing payment services through its subsidiary Bitpanda Pay.
Bitpanda is not a conventional crypto exchange. Instead, it acts as a crypto broker with investment features that allow users to buy crypto and manage them as part of an overall portfolio.
Even though Bitpanda has one of the largest crypto offerings in Europe, the investment platform supports a wide range of asset classes across stocks and ETFs*, metals, commodities and crypto indices.
Once your account has been verified, you can deposit one of 10 supported currencies, which are usually popular currencies within the EU and the US dollars. The minimum deposit limit is 25 EUR, but you can buy crypto with as little as 1 EUR.
You can store the cryptos you buy on the platform as it implements cold storage solutions for the larger portion of users’ funds.
The platform also provides several features that improve users’ investment options by providing more ways to benefit from cryptos aside from buying and selling, like staking, leverage and savings plans.
Bitpanda offers over 300 cryptocurrencies on its platform. You can invest with as little as 1 EUR and even set up a savings plan where the platform automatically buys a fixed amount of crypto at a specified recurring period.
The platform also comes with an in-built swap feature that allows you to trade between cryptos. This feature takes swapping one step further by allowing you to swap between different asset types in your portfolio.
Essentially, you can swap your crypto into stocks or metals, and vice versa.
Bitpanda offers commission-free stock trading services. The securities are not the stocks themselves, but a derivative contract that mimics the underlying stock’s attributes. These contracts are issued and managed by Bitpanda and allow you to buy fractional shares for as low as 1 EUR.
Because the shares are contracts, you can buy, sell, and trade them round the clock, even on weekends, public holidays and after market hours, making them very liquid.
Bitpanda’s crypto indices are an innovative way for investors to gain crypto exposure without buying any singular coin. The indices track a particular sector or group of cryptos, spreads investments among them, and rebalances them periodically. All investors need to do is invest in indices they believe in.
There are seven indices that focus on various sectors of the crypto industry. Some examples include the BCI Smart Contract Leaders which tracks 14 of the top smart contract networks and the BCI DeFi Leaders which tracks the top 6 decentralized finance tokens.
Investments in precious metals on Bitpanda is an investment in the physical metal which is custodied by vaults in Switzerland. All metals acquired and stored are investment-grade bullion and start as low as 1 EUR.
Bitpanda offers contracts that track the price of commodities. Like stock, these contracts can be traded around the clock and even used as a hedge against inflation.
This feature grants access to leverage to trade crypto price action in the short term. Thanks to financial instruments called Contracts for Differences (CFDs), you can go either long or short on your chosen crypto while Bitpanda automatically rebalances your position daily to maintain your leverage ratio.
Bitpanda’s savings plan is an easy way to automate your investment activities. You can set automated dollar cost average amounts at specified periods across all assets. The platform automatically buys your chosen assets in the set portions at the specified time.
However, you’ll need to set up a recurring payment method. The available options are credit cards and SEPA direct debit.
The Bitpanda spotlight is a program that handpicks new, innovative projects that are generally hard to find and offers them to investors. Users get the benefit of being early to projects that could potentially be worth a lot in the future.
You can subscribe to upcoming projects to get a portion of their tokens for a price, usually before they hit the open market.
Bitpanda Cash Plus is a feature that allows you to earn yields on idle cash in your account. This program is geared at investors who do not deploy all their funds all the time. Instead of the cash sitting idle in their account, they can earn yields on it. The program is flexible and investors can withdraw their cash at any time, even at night.
The yields offered are 2.94% for EUR deposits, 4.04% for GBP deposits, and 4.33% for USD deposits. However, BEST VIP users get higher yields.
The Bitpanda card is a prepaid VISA debit card that allows you to spend your assets like cash. The card is funded by your assets, and you can choose which assets to spend through the app.
The card is accepted by over 54 million merchants in over 200 countries and does not charge monthly or card maintenance fees. It is also compatible with mobile payment services like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay.
BEST is Bitpanda’s ecosystem token and is used to reward dedicated users with various benefits, yields, cashbacks, and higher staking rewards. There are five VIP levels that are unlocked with increased BEST holdings.
To get to the first level, you must hold at least 10 BEST tokens while the highest level requires 50,000 BEST tokens. The higher up you go, the more rewards you get.
Bitpanda also burns BEST tokens periodically to reduce the supply and increase the token’s value. So far, over 100 million tokens have been burned from a total supply of 1 billion.
Bitpanda allows users to earn rewards by staking supported cryptos. You have the choice of 28 proof-of-stake coins with varying annual yields, with the highest being 19%. The staking program is flexible, allowing you withdraw your funds at any time.
Security is paramount wherever financial information is concerned. Luckily, Bitpanda implements state-of-the-art security measures thanks to their ISO 27001 certification, the latest industry-standard certification.
The platform also implements ongoing monitoring to ensure users’ accounts and data remain safe.
Lastly, the platform implements two-factor and multi-factor authentication to help users keep their accounts safe in cases where their passwords are leaked.
Regulation is very important, especially for platforms that offer crypto services as there are various scenarios where a lack of regulatory clarity or licenses led to brokers being shut down.
Bitpanda is not lacking in regulatory compliance. The platform holds up to 10 licenses from regulators in various European countries.
For example, Bitpanda Asset Management GmbH is licensed by the German Regulator BaFin, Bitpanda Payments GmbH possesses a payment service provider license under PSD2. Bitpanda Financial Services GmbH holds a MiFID II investment firm license with strict user verification processes that are fully compliant with AML5.
The payment options available determine the overall cost of moving funds between your investment and bank accounts. The goal is for this process to be as simple as possible.
Bitpanda accepts various deposit methods, most of which are specific to EU citizens. Some examples are credit cards, SEPA transfers, Sofort, EPS, giro pay, Skrill, Neteller, and Bitpanda Payments.
The cost of carrying out activities like investing, trading, and funding are important as they determine the overall cost of investing. Costs that are too high end up eating into profits realized and are charged even if your efforts are unprofitable.
Bitpanda charges low fees for investing and trading. We expand on its fees in a later section.
Customer support is important as users may run into issues when setting up their accounts, managing their investments, or using services. The ideal situation is live chat, phone, and email services being made available.
Bitpanda provides email support, a helpdesk, a ticket system, and Live Chat for Bitpanda Club members
Investment platforms that claim to offer a holistic experience should have a range of services that offer as many tools, products, and opportunities for users to make good decisions and maximize yields.
Bitpanda does this well as it offers a wide range of services that allow investors to buy, sell, trade, save, spend, and earn yields on their assets.
The cost of using the Bitpanda platform is split into various fees and costs. We explore them here.
Trading premiums are charged on assets like cryptocurrency. For Bitcoin, it is 1.49% for both buying and selling. These premiums are baked into the bid and offer price and updated in real-time.
For stocks and ETFs, Bitpanda charges a 0.5% spread during regular trading hours and a 0.6% night and weekend spread.
For precious metals, charges include trade premiums and storage fees. Trade premiums for Gold include 0.5% when buying and 1% when selling. All Gold holdings above 20g are subject to a 0.0125% weekly storage charge.
For Silver, the charges are 2.5% for buying, 2% for selling, and a 0.025% weekly storage fee for all holdings above 200g. The same charges apply to Platinum, although the minimum free holding weight is 20g.
Finally, Palladium’s charges are 2.2% for buying, 1.8% for selling, and a weekly storage fee of 0.025% for holdings above 20g.
Bitpanda supports 10 currencies, most of them in the Eurozone. They all come with various deposit limits and methods which we dive into in this section.
For Euro payments, the payment channels are online payments (like e-wallets), credit card payments, bank transfers, SEPA transfers, Sofort, EPS, and giro pay.
US Dollar limits are the same as above, however, deposit methods are bank transfers, credit cards, and Skrill. Payments in Swiss francs are the equivalent of the table above while payment channels include Sofort, credit cards, SEPA, Skrill, and Neteller.
British Payment providers include SEPA, Skrill, Neteller, credit cards, bank transfers, and Rapid Transfers. Most of the other currencies can be used with credit cards as they are less popular.
Bitpanda is not the only crypto broker on the market as other brokers and exchanges offer similar services. However, Bitpanda stands out from other services in a few ways.
Bitpanda offers a complete end-to-end investment service from deposits to management, saving, spending, earning, and selling. Over the years, it has added services that cater to core investors, not just the crypto-savvy.
Unlike other crypto exchanges that do not offer rewards on idle cash, Bitpanda offers a way to earn up to 4.33% per year on idle cash up to €10 million per account.
Our research shows that Bitpanda is safe as the platform is adequately regulated, possesses the highest information security certificate in the industry, utilizes cold wallets for storing user crypto deposits, and runs ongoing security monitoring.
Also, there are no reports of Bitpanda being breached or engaging in fraudulent activities.
Bitpanda is easy to use. Its user interface is simple and easy to navigate, allowing traditional investors to easily get started with the major asset classes seamlessly. The terms and conditions are also transparent and all fees are laid out so users know how much everything costs before getting started.
Bitpanda holds 10 licenses from various European government agencies like the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) and French Autorité des Marches Financiers (AMF). Its subsidiaries are compliant with local laws in the EU and implement the highest standards.
Bitpanda uses the latest technologies and techniques in information security. It possesses the ISO 27001 certification which is the latest version of the international standard. Some of its subsidiaries also have licenses like the MiFID II investment firm license with strict user verification processes that are fully compliant with AML5.
Bitpanda’s investment platform offers a wide range of services, more than enough for the average investor and adequate enough for even sophisticated investors. Its services go beyond investing into a lifestyle service that helps users organize their finances and make payments.
Bitpanda is an investment platform that provides a top-to-bottom approach to holistic investing. It offers cryptocurrencies, stocks and ETFs*, metals, commodities, precious metals, and crypto indices.
Deposits can be made in 10 fiat currencies using over five popular payment methods. Fees are affordable at a 1.49% premium for cryptocurrencies and various premiums for other assets.
However, Bitpanda’s license limits its services to people in the Eurozone. Investors outside Europe may not be able to access the site or its services.
Finally, Bitpanda’s services provide tools for investors to actively manage, automate, and grow their portfolios for the long term.
*Bitpanda Stocks are contracts replicating an underlying stock or ETF