Austrian Startup Bitpanda Announces New Crypto Exchange for Professional Traders

Vienna-based startup Bitpanda, formerly Coinimal, has announced that it will be launching a new cryptocurrency exchange, the company said on Wednesday. Dubbed the Bitpanda Global Exchange, the platform will allow experienced traders, professionals and institutions to conduct crypto-to-crypto and fiat-to-crypto trades, and is scheduled to launch in August.

Founded in 2014, Bitpanda is a brokerage platform that allows users to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies and digital assets including bitcoin, ether, as well as digitized gold, in Europe. The company claims around one million users and more than a hundred employees.

“Offering experienced users a way to trade digital assets and building the largest euro exchange is the next logical step for us,” said Eric Demuth, CEO of Bitpanda. “Bitpanda has been around since 2014 and we are a key player in Europe. We can build on a lot of synergies and experience.”

The Bitpanda Global Exchange will launch with support of popular trading pairs such as BTC/EUR, BTC/USDT, ETH/EUR, XRP/EUR, MIOTA/EUR, ETH/BTC, XRP/BTC, MIOTA/BTC, PAN/BTC, BEST/BTC, BEST/EUR and BEST/USDT, and more to come in the future, the company said. Verified users will be able to deposit euro, Swiss franc and British pound.

The platform will have its own token, called the Bitpanda Ecosystem Token (BEST), which will offer users benefits and perks within the ecosystem, including reduced trading fees, priority access to the upcoming Bitpanda Launchpad, as well as the ability to launch third-party initial exchange offerings (IEOs).

“BEST will play a vital role in Bitpanda’s global expansion and in making our vision of democratizing personal finance and investing,” Demuth said. “BEST is the fuel of the Bitpanda ecosystem, which means that the Bitpanda platform, the Bitpanda Global Exchange and future products like the Bitpanda Launchpad will make heavy use of incorporating BEST.”

In April, Bitpanda was granted the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) license by the Austrian financial market authority (FMA). PSD2 is a directive by the European Union (EU) that regulates payment service providers throughout the European Union (EU) and the whole European Economic Area (EEA).

With the license in hand, the company said it will launch “exciting features and products in the coming months.”

“Our goal is to bridge the gap between the modern and traditional financial world. The payment service provider license will allow us to tear barriers down,” said Philipp Bohrn, one of the two managing directors of Bitpanda Payments, a new division the company launched last year.