Bitpanda Review: Crypto, Indices, Stocks & Metals

Despite the complex, exclusive and expensive nature of today's financial system, the awareness and use of cryptocurrency trading platforms and related services are on the rise. In this review, we will take a look at Bitpanda which is an all-in-one platform to invest in stocks, crypto and metals.

Before getting started, it is recommended to find the best Bitcoin hardware wallet before exploring any exchange or trading platform. Hardware wallets, such as the Ledger Nano X is one of the best choices for storing crypto-assets. 

Bitpanda, formerly known as Coinimal, is based in Vienna, Austria and provides an easy-to-use trading desk for individuals to get started with cryptocurrencies. The exchange allows the investors to buy, sell or instantly swap over 100 digital assets with a user-friendly platform and offers a wide variety of products. Bitpanda has grown in popularity due to its simplicity and unique markets like crypto, stocks, precious metals, ETFs and crypto indices.

The company was founded in 2014 by CEO's Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek and CTO Christian Trummer. Bitpanda comprises of over 400 team members that serve more than 2.5 million users globally and is one of the fastest growing Fintech companies in Europe.

Individuals with a US citizenship or located within the United States are not allowed to use Bitpanda. The USA is a restricted country due to strict regulatory policies enforced by the US Government. Customers in this region that want to purchase cryptocurrency will need to create an account with a local US crypto exchange that is licenced and regulated within most States and Territories within the USA.

Here are a few alternative crypto exchanges like Bitpanda that offer a similar range of features and services.

Bitpanda appears to be a safe and secure exchange that features two factor authentication (2FA), multi-signature wallets and state-of-the-art cold storage solutions to ensure customer funds are kept safe. Other measures in place are SSL encryption, DDOS protection and email confirmation for withdrawing funds from Bitpanda. Bitpanda also holds a PSD2 payment service provider licence as per legislation in Europe to make cross-border payments safe, easy and secure with enhanced security measures.

According to our research, Bitpanda has never been hacked or compromised since its inception in 2014. To date, there have been no reports of denial of service attacks, system hi-jacking, theft of funds from wallets or privacy breaches of user's personnel information.

The team at Bitpanda believe that individuals should be able to easily and securely invest in the most popular assets. Bitpanda allows its users to buy and sell over 50 cryptocurrencies, crypto indices, stocks, EFT's and metals all in the one trading account. Popular stocks & EFT's include Tesla, Apple, Facebook, FTSE 100 and NASDAQ 100. There are 3 crypto indices offered that contain multiple coins for users to gain exposure to the overall market. Stocks and ETF's can be purchased in fractional amounts from as little as €1. These assets can be one-off purchases or recurring orders.

Customers can also purchase metals such as gold, silver, palladium and platinum, which have historically been considered an excellent store of value and hedge against inflation. The purchased asset is legally owned by the customer and physically-backed in a secure vault that is stored in a high-security facility in Switzerland by Brinks. The overall selection of markets on Bitpanda allows users to diversify their portfolio into several asset classes using the one trading platform.

Recurring orders or otherwise known as Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) is a great tool for investors to gradually accumulate a portfolio. The stress of volatility and asset price is negated through recurring orders to set up an automatic and recurring payment that can be daily, weekly or monthly to invest in crypto over time. The Bitpanda Savings plan will smooth out price fluctuations and take advantage of cost averaging benefits. Payments can be set up using a credit/debit card or SEPA direct debit.

Bitpanda Swap enables instant swapping of one digital asset to another in a fast and easy way. The service is also simple, secure and limit-free service. The user-interface is fast and responsive to instantly swap any supported coin or token on the exchange using the desktop or mobile app for iOS and Android devices. Swapped coins will arrive immediately to the particular wallet which can be withdrawn.

Bitpanda offers a debit card to spend crypto, metals and stocks that are linked to the wallet at anytime or any place. The card is integrated with VISA technology that allows users to spend funds at over 54 million merchants worldwide in 200+ countries. There are no card fees or monthly account costs to use the Bitpanda debit card.

The card can be linked to a mobile device using the Bitpanda app to monitor real-time purchases. For VIP users, there is added incentive to spend using the card to earn crypto cashback bonuses per transaction between 0.5% and 2%.

Bitpanda is widely supported across the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and Europe for users to deposit funds within the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) to buy, trade and sell digital currencies. Therefore, countries outside this region such as Australia, the United States, Canada, China, South Africa, New Zealand and Singapore will not be able to complete ID Verification to purchase cryptocurrencies on Bitpanda.

For a list of suitable exchanges outside the allowed countries on Bitpanda, read our articles on the best crypto exchanges in Australia.

According to Coinmarketcap, Bitpanda Pro is the 68th largest cryptocurrency exchange by traffic, liquidity, trading volumes, and confidence in the legitimacy of trading volumes reported. At the time of writing, Bitpanda processes over $20 million in daily transaction volume, with BTC/EUR, ETH/EUR and XRP/EUR its biggest trading pairs.

The BTC/EUR pair has a liquidity score of 300/1000 which is fairly low and suggests there is a higher slippage on large order sizes compared to more liquid exchanges. The overall trading volumes are similar to Coinfloor, which is a UK based crypto exchange with similar features to Bitpanda.

New users to Bitpanda and Bitpanda Pro will need to create an account and complete Identity verification to become fully verified as per the EU regulations and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes on the platform. A paper document such as a driving license is not sufficient for verification. For most countries, users will need to upload a copy of a Government-backed Passport to complete identity verification.

Bitpanda offers a safe and secure platform to deposit funds to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and traditional markets. The supported fiat currencies include the EUR, GBP, CHF, TRY and USD. Cryptocurrencies and ERC-20 tokens can also be transferred to Bitpanda as a deposit to swap for other digital assets.

The supported deposit methods for traditional currencies vary per country and include credit card (VISA and Mastercard), SOFORT, EPS, Giropay, Neteller, Skrill, Online Bank Transfer and SEPA. For USA customers, the accepted payment method to buy crypto is using a credit card or Skrill, with the latter being the only available withdrawal method for USD transfers.

Bitpanda platform supports 57 cryptocurrencies that can be bought or sold on the exchange such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, XRP and BEST, the Bitpanda Ecosystem Token. The exchange lists the large market cap coins, stablecoins and lesser known altcoins as speculative investments or for portfolio diversification. The selection of cryptocurrencies and 3 crypto indices offers a wide range of coins for various types of investors to gain exposure to the market.

Buying Bitcoin and other digital currencies with Bitpanda is seamless, fast and easy. The overall process from creating an account, completing ID verification to depositing funds has been designed to suit beginners. Buying crypto with Bitpanda does not require advanced knowledge of charting or placing price orders. The overall experience is streamlined with a visually appealing interface that does not have complicated options which can be distracting and confusing.

Bitpanda Pro is the advanced trading platform that can be used to speculate on 23 digital currencies paired against the Euro, Swiss France and the Turkish Lira. The user-interface on desktop and mobile versions is sleek, intuitive and offers advanced trading tools and indicators to suit both retail and professional traders.

The chart in the middle of the layout is quite small and will not suit traders that rely on technical analysis. There is the option for full-screen mode, however, it will need to be minimized to enter an order. Full-screen mode also does not allow charting with drawings tools, patterns and lines to be overlaid.

In terms of market execution, Bitpanda Pro offers the option to place a market order, limit order and stop order. These are the 3 basic order types that can be used to enter into a buy or sell position. Compared to the top crypto trading platforms that we have reviewed, the selection of order types is limited and does not include advanced orders such as One Cancels The Other, Trailing Stop, Iceberg and others.

In our opinion, Bitpanda Pro is not suited for beginners as they will find the default trading arrangement to be confronting with the order book, market depth charts, market history data. A simpler method for beginners is to use the Bitpanda swap service or exchange service.

The Bitpanda Crypto Index (BCI10) consist of the top 5, 10 or 25 cryptocurrencies by market size and liquidity that can be bought and sold on the Bitpanda exchange. Using a single order, customers can purchase the Bitcoin Crypto Index to gain exposure to the most popular cryptocurrencies. Bitpanda will automatically rebalance the users portfolio each month based on real-time data to ensure the correct allocation of coins within a portfolio.

The Bitpanda Crypto Indexes offered include:

The benefits of investing in the Bitpanda Crypto Index fund is automatically investing in the best digital currencies within the market and reduce exposure to price volatility. The index can be bought, swapped and sold like any other cryptocurrency on the exchange. There are zero performance-related fees or fees for assets held by Bitpanda, however, there is a trading premium of 1.99% applied for each buy, swap or sell transaction.

In addition, each month there is a 1.99% fee to rebalance the coins within the Bitpanda Crypto Index. Overall, the Bitpanda crypto index is suitable for beginners that want to easily and safely invest in cryptocurrencies and maintain a well diversified portfolio. The biggest downside is the trading fees which are quite high, however, can be cheaper in fees compared to individually buying each coin on Bitpanda.

Bitpanda collaborated with the Austrian postal office in its effort to make cryptocurrency accessible to everyone to establish a Bitpanda To Go voucher. One can get a voucher in Austria from any of the 1,750 partnered postal branches with cash or other accepted payment methods.

The voucher codes can further be redeemed from a verified Bitpanda account, and the coins will be directly deposited in the person's wallet.

Also, when one purchases cryptocurrencies through Bitpanda To Go, the customer gets a significant reduction.

Individuals that buy and sell cryptocurrencies using fiat money on Bitpanda will be charged a transaction fee of 1.49% per order. The fee can be reduced by 20% by paying with BEST, the utility token of Bitpanda. Overall, the spot fees for buying and selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are quite expensive when compared to other fiat-to-crypto exchanges. For example, popular crypto exchanges in Europe such as bitFlyer, EXMO and Coinfloor have instant trading fees between 0.2% and 0.3%. 

Bitpanda Pro uses a maker and taker model to determine the transaction fees on the exchange. The highest maker and taker fees on Bitpanda Pro are 0.1% and 0.15%. The trading fees on Bitpanda Pro are competitive compared to similar platforms such as Binance, KuCoin and FTX. However, the exchange liquidity on Bitpanda Pro is average which can result in slippage and higher spread costs on pairs with low trading volume.

Buying precious metals on Bitpanda such as Gold, Silver and Platinum have addition fees in addition to a storage fee. For Gold, the fee to buy and sell is 0.5% and 1% respectively. The fees for Silver are 2.5% and 2% for buy and sell orders. The storage costs for holding the physical assets within a secure vault depends on the metal which are either 0.0125% or 0.025% of the total amount per week. 

In our opinion, the fees for buying, storing and selling metals on Bitpanda does not seem to offer high value-for-money, particularly when investors can choose to buy Bitcoin as a store of value for a much lower fee and store it on a secure hardware wallet for free.

Bitpanda provides a comprehensive support helpdesk with an online knowledge base. There are hundreds of articles within the Help Section that answers the majority of the topics related to getting started with crypto on Bitpanda. In addition, there is a FAQ section n the website that answers the most commonly asked questions about fees, limits, withdrawals and deposits, payment methods and ID verification. 

For specific queries or troubleshooting issues, Bitpanda has a live chat system to speak with a team member or a contact ticket to send a query. Responses to the ticket system can take more than 48 hours to obtain a return email, which can be expected for a large crypto exchange with over 2.5 million users worldwide but is generally not acceptable for everyday users.

According to Trustpilot, Bitpanda has a 4.5/5 star rating based on 5,882 customers reviews. An estimated 79% of all customer reviews are in the EXCELLENT category, however, the most recent feedback has numerous negative reviews on the customer support which make up most of the complaints on Bitpanda. Long waiting times for support to respond, missing funds and issues with the ID verification process are the most common frustrations on the exchange.

The Bitpanda App is available for Android and iOS mobile devices to provide users with an easy way to transact Bitcoin, invest in stocks or ETFs. The app is fast, intuitive and safe for buying, storing, trading and selling digital currencies with Bitpanda. The trading app has received positive reviews from customers with a 4.8/5 star rating on Google's Play Store with a total of 16,438 votes.

Bitpanda is a reputable exchange that offers fast and reliable service for individuals across Europe and the United Kingdom to buy, trade, store and sell cryptocurrencies. The user interface has been designed for a broad range of investor types from beginners to advanced traders on its Bitpanda Pro platform. Bitpanda has excelled in the cryptocurrency space by offering a range of markets to participate in using a single platform such as crypto, stocks, indices and metals.

The fees on Bitpanda for instant buy and sell positions, recurring orders and storing precious metals are a little high when compared to reputable alternatives that offer similar services. However, Bitpanda and Bitpanda Pro provides a safe and user-friendly exchange on desktop and mobile app for individuals to get started with cryptocurrencies using fiat.