BitPanda is without a doubt on a rise to become one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe.
It favours a high-security level as well as a quick transaction process. Whether you’re buying or selling, BitPanda doesn’t hold your funds. Instead, it transfers it straight away to a buyer or a seller.
You can buy Bitcoins, Ether, Litecoin and Dash as well as trade mentioned altcoins for Bitcoins. With plenty of options to trade your Fiat money for cryptocoins, you definitely won’t be disappointed.
In our opinion, BitPanda is Europe’s most secure cryptocurrency exchange, with modern design and extremely easy to use interface.
BitPanda: Overview
- Name: BitPanda
- Website:
- Minimum Spend: €25
- Type: Exchange and Wallet
- Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, Etherum, Litecoin, Dash
- Fiat Currency: EUR
- Rating: 4.5/5
BitPanda is both an exchange and a cryptocurrency wallet. Meaning you can buy your cryptocurrency through it as well as store your cryptocoins in a wallet.
Established in Austria, BitPanda has been around since 2014 and it’s previously known as Conimal GmbH.
The company was originally a start-up that was born between three university students who were passionate about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. They’ve identified a huge gap in the European cryptocurrency market – it was simply painful to buy it.
From then onwards, the company grew to one of the most famous European cryptocurrency exchanges.
BitPanda’s philosophy is to offer a service that is more convenient than anything that currently exists. Apart from offering a platform to buy and sell cryptocurrency, BitPanda thrives to work with a legal framework to protect both themselves and its customers.
Besides a cryptocurrency exchange, BitPanda also gives you a cryptocurrency wallet, where you can store all your virtual money. So if you don’t have a separate wallet, don’t worry – BitPanda will provide you with an address and private key.
It’s a fully automated service – as soon as the payment is confirmed, you will receive your cryptocurrency. No funds are held and they’re automatically transferred to buyers. This significantly reduces the risk and increased the safety of both your Fiat money and cryptocurrency.
BitPanda won a start-up award in October 2016 and ever since it’s been a trusted company in the cryptocurrency land ever since.
BitPanda: Supported Countries
BitPanda is well-known mostly in Europe. You can sell your coins from anywhere around the world, but you can buy them via BitPanda only from Europe.
The website is available in two main languages – English and German, hence it’s been established in Austria.
You won’t be able to access all methods of payment as some of them are restricted to specific areas. For international customers, the only available methods of payment are Skrill and Neteller.
Bottom line – first check what method of payment do you want to use and then you will see whether you can use it or not from your home country.
BitPanda: Cryptocurrency Offered
BitPanda continuously works on improving their services and cryptocurrency they offer.
As of July 2017, BitPanda offers to buy/sell:
- Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Litcoin
- Dash
BitPanda: Accepted Payment Methods
BitPanda has one of the largest selection of payment methods but you have a different choice when it comes to payment and payout providers.
Depending on which method you decide to choose, the transaction speed can vary from 10 seconds to up to 3 days.
Most of BitPanda’s payment methods are instant so your bitcoins will also be delivered near instantly. Credit/debit card buys, plus SOFORT, NETELLER or EPS buys will deliver bitcoins to your wallet almost right away. SEPA transfers take about a day to complete which means it will take about that long for the bitcoins to arrive at your wallet.
Selling bitcoins is an easy and smooth process with BitPanda. You will have to provide the bank details you want to receive the SEPA transfer with. You can also use Skrill or NETELLER and receive the payout there. Afterwards, you will be sent a cryptocoin address, to which you have to send your cryptocoins within 10 minutes. The money should be on your account within 10-30 minutes.
Payment Methods:
- Visa / MasterCard
- SOFORT Transfer
- SEPA Transfer
- Skrill
- NETELLER
- GIROPAY / EPS
- Gift Voucher
Payout Providers:
- SEPA Transfer
- Skrill
- NETELLER
- Amazon.de Voucher Code
‘bitpanda on the go’
One of the newest additions is ‘bitpanda to go’ – you can purchase any of the offered cryptocoins in all post office branches in Austria. You can change cash into cryptocoins worth €50, €100 or €500.
You will receive a voucher with a code on it and all you need is an account verified by email. You choose the currency you want to purchase, put the code in and within seconds it will be on your account.
The current exchange will have all the fees included, so after redeeming your voucher, you won’t have to pay anything.
So far, it’s only been introduced in Austria, but there are plans on further expanding it in Europe.
BitPanda: Privacy & Security
BitPanda has one major drawback – if you want your account to be secure and have a higher transaction limit, you have to submit an ID form and go through a video chat verification.
The platform also has a 2-factor authentication with Google and keeps track of all login attempts, in case anyone tried to access your account.
I think one of the most surprising aspects of BitPanda was the video call verification. You will speak to a real human being and will have to show a government issued ID. Don’t worry – it’s not a scam but a confirmation that you are who you’re claiming to be.
BitPanda offers three different levels of verification based on how much information you want to provide and preferred money limit:
- Verified Email – With a verified email you cannot buy bitcoins, but can sell up to €1,000 worth of bitcoins per day, and up to €7,500 per month
- Verified Phone Number – With a verified mobile phone number you can buy bitcoins with any payment methods besides credit card. Using the other payment methods, you can buy up to €50 per day
- Verified ID – By verifying your ID you can buy bitcoins with a credit card, up to €350 per day and up to €10,000 per month. For other payment methods, you can buy up to €5,000 worth of bitcoins per day, and up to €75,000 per month
BitPanda: Fees
BitPanda doesn’t publicly display the fees, which one of the most common complaints. Instead, they’re included in the cryptocoin price when you checkout to buy or sell your coins.
The exchange tends to offer higher exchange rates than average due to the fact that you can buy cryptocoins with methods that allow chargeback – like bank cards or Skrill.
The fee varies depending on the payment method, usually, it’s about 2% more than the average market rate. However, there might be additional fees based on your chosen method of payment.
When you want to buy or sell your coins, you will notice that the price consists of the exchange rate plus a small fee.
BitPanda: Customer Service
BitPanda’s customer service is available via Support Ticket – it’s not a Live Chat, it works more like an email.
From my experience, BitPanda aims to reply within 24h and they did so. So far, BitPanda doesn’t offer any other way of customer service on their website. But you can access it via Facebook and Twitter account as well.
BitPanda: Interface
BitPanda has perhaps one of the most modern and advanced looking websites. It’s inviting and easy to use even for newbies.
The exchange doesn’t offer a mobile or desktop application but it has a mobile optimised version of the website. You can access your account through there and you will see the same functions as through the desktop version.
BitPanda: Who Is It For?
The exchange is definitely one of the best platforms to start with, especially with its easy and modern design, even rookies will be able to find themselves.
Above all, if you’re interested in investing in cryptocurrency and don’t mind a lower privacy level, BitPanda is a place to go. You also have a choice of using a wallet that is ready on BitPanda, or you can transfer your cryptocoins to a separate wallet.
On the other hand, if you cherish the anonymity behind cryptocurrency, you won’t be too happy about showing your ID form and submitting your address. You will still be anonymous on the network but your data will be in a third party hand.
Thus BitPanda is more often used and preferred by those who are new into cryptocurrency and don’t mind paying a bit extra in transaction fees but in exchange.
BitPanda: How To Buy Your First Cryptocurrency Step-by-Step Guide
We wanted to see ourselves if using BitPanda is actually as easy as everyone says so we decided to give it a go ourselves.
Turns out, you can create an account and buy your first cryptocoins in 8 steps! Here’s how to do it:
#1 Go to www.bitpanda.com and choose English as your main language.
#2 Click ‘Sign Up’ and all you will have to do at the beginning is provide your email address, verify it and choose your password.
#3 As soon as you log in, you will land on the main dashboard, which is easy to understand and feels very much like PayPal.
#4 If your first instinct is to buy some cryptocoins, go to the tab ‘Buy’. Here you’re going to see:
- Current market price and fluctuations of chosen cryptocurrency
- Available method of payment
- How much would you like to buy
#5 The minimum amount to spend is €25, which will give you few thousands of satoshis (100,000,000 Satoshi = 1 Bitcoin).
#6 You will have to log in again and go through a 2-thier verification process via Google. If you haven’t verified your account yet, you will have to do it before going through with payment.
If you decide to go for a Gold verification, you will be automatically connected to a video chat with one of the customer support agents, who will verify your identity.
Don’t get scared – the language will turn into German but the agent will speak English.
#7 After the video chat, refresh the ‘Buy’ page and you will be able to proceed with your chosen method of payment.
Again, during the payment verification process, things will be displayed in German. Luckily, the words are pretty straightforward and you will be able to figure it out.
#8 That’s it! Congratulations, you purchased your first cryptocurrency, in our case Bitcoin.
You can see all the details in the history box.
BitPanda: Rating
We couldn’t find anything to complain about while using BitPanda, hence we decided to award it 4.5/5 stars!
If anything, we appreciated the high level of security and we felt confident leaving our funds with BitPanda. At the same time, we understand that the entire idea behind blockchain technology and cryptocurrency is to provide as little personal details as possible.
BitPanda’s fees could be more transparent as well – we would like to know exactly how much are we charged the standard exchange rate and what is the transaction fee.
We were also pleasantly surprised how easy it was to create an account and buy cryptocurrency – it took minutes.
Just remember, if you’re based outside of Europe, you can only sell your coins via BitPanda. Buying is strictly restricted to European customers only.
Nonetheless, BitPanda is our favourite exchange so far, offering more than just Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency and making the investment a comfortable and safe experience.
