My Experience with Bitpanda

In a past blog post, I wrote about how I stumbled upon Bitcoin and eventually added crypto to my investment portfolio. As a start, I wanted a very simple and minimalistic solution without much fuss to invest into crypto. I knew that I would start with a rather small amount to invest in and thus didn't (yet) need a wallet solution that's off an exchange (more on this in a later blog post).

Why Bitpanda?

After researching a few platforms, I settled on Bitpanda because it's:

• Legitimate: Bitpanda is a registered digital assets service provider with the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) under FM-GwG and with the French Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) under PACTE law. The Bitpanda Payments GmbH holds a PSD2 licence, meaning it is a regulated entity.

• Super safe: you may have heard of cases where exchanges and wallets have been hacked, leaving investors with empty pockets. Bitpanda is safe and secure as of yet (although it is always a great idea to keep your crypto in a wallet that's not kept on an exchange once you hit a certain amount of crypto). Users' funds are stored in secure offline wallets using state-of-the-art technology and can be and can be secured using Two-Factor Authentication. Bitpanda also provides SSL encryption and DDOS protection.

• Easy to use: Bitpanda boasts a beautiful yet minimalist interface both on the desktop as well as on the apps. I hate nothing more than dealing with an ugly and cumbersome user interface that has too many buttons that don't do much or isn't intuitive at all (I'm looking at you here, Swissquote). Even the onboarding process is as easy as pie and follows the usual way of how most trading and banking do it nowadays.

Bitpanda Features

Besides the above above features, Bitpanda also offers:

• Automated savings plans

• Buying and selling for beginners of crypto assets (24/7)

• Buying and selling for professionals with "Bitpanda Pro" with charting tools and all order types

• Fractional buying and selling of selected stocks and metals (24/7)

• Visa debit card (not yet available in Switzerland)

• Deposits or withdrawals with EUR, CHF, GBP, USD or TRY

• Extensive learning forum including a blog

Fee Structure

Of course, all these features are not free. In fact, the fees at Bitpanda for a purchase or sale of Bitcoin are 1.49%. All other cryptocurrencies are not explicitly mentioned. All premiums for the purchase and sale of cryptos and digital assets are already included in the offered prices and are updated continually in real-time. Before completing a purchase, the exact amount of coins or fiat is shown on the order confirmation page.

For Bitpanda Pro, the maximum maker fees on Bitpanda Pro are 0.1% and the maximum taker fees are 0.15%. For both platforms, the fees can be discounted, if you buy your assets using Bitpanda's native token called BEST (Bitpanda EcoSystem Token).

BEST (Bitpanda Ecosystem Token) is Bitpanda's own cryptocurrency and will play a big role in the company and its expansion in the future. BEST can be bought and traded like other cryptocurrencies on the platform and when paying for transaction fees on Bitpanda, a 20% discount is applied. However, BEST must be in your wallet and you must trade at least once a month. There are some other exclusive benefits as well, such as voting, promotions etc.

For buying metals, the fees can vary from 1% to 2.5% for both buying and selling in addition to storage fees.

Depositing Money and Savings Plans

Depositing money is fairly straight forward with Bitpanda. Several avenues are offered including SEPA, credit card, SKRILL, Sofort -- however, I only use SEPA as it is free but it also took the longest. Some of my deposits took upwards a whole week to get to my account, which is the biggest negative point, in my experience with Bitpanda so far. Credit card deposits are faster, but penalized with a 1.99% fee (yikes).

Nonetheless, once money is deposited, I loved using their saving plans scheme, whereby purchases are done regularly at a desired time, such as daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly executions. This makes it stupidly easy to benefit from the cost-average effect and a good strategy to balance out market volatility. In addition, Bitpanda makes it super easy to invest in crypto via its Bitpanda crypto indices for diversification across multiple cryptocurrencies, which are perfect for the savings plans. Again, payments via savings plans can be made via several options: Visa, MasterCard or SEPA direct debit. The defined amounts are debited automatically.

Conclusion

Bitpanda is a super sleek and easy way to start buying cryptocurrencies. With a user-friendly and intuitive interface, both on desktop and smart phone, easy onboarding and safe way to store digital assets, it's one of the most reliable platforms on the market in Europe. For Swiss investors, the onboarding is without fuss although, in my experience, depositing CHF onto the platform can take longer than expected and is the only real negative point. However, Bitpanda compensates for this by offering savings plans which are easy to set up and help with the cost-average-effect as well as the volatility so typical of crypto. I also appreciate that Bitpanda offers fractional shares on selected stocks -- it makes it mentally a bit easier to buy expensive stocks such as Tesla or Google without having to break the bank. In addition, I am looking forward to when they release their Card to Swiss users, as it would be the first crypto card for me and I am not quite sure yet if it's something I'd really use (can only know once I get one). Overall, I am continuing to use Bitpanda for my crypto and will do so in the foreseeable future.

++This is not financial, legal or investment advice and is not a solicitation to buy or sell products. I assume no liability for the accuracy of the information on my website, blog articles and any emails. Trading securities on the stock market is risky and you could lose your entire initial investment. I assume no liability for your decisions. I recommend products on my blog that I use myself. I may receive a commission for links posted, which helps me finance my blog and website.++