For those who don't know Bitpanda -- it is an austrian platform where people can buy a variety of cryptocurrencies. They had an IEO last year with their BEST token and they are also maintaining a (small) exchange where people can trade in selected markets.

What makes this post even the more interesting for me is: I had this in preparation for a long time (too long in fact) and there were so many changes along the way, it really was a surprise for me, had to rewrite it all, over and over again.

So, on that Bitpanda Global Exchange they did a few changes "recently", meaning: in March, which is a long time ago in crypto terms ... but that surprised me. They renamed the Exchange to Bitpanda Pro. And, more significant: they sacked a few markets, namely BTC/USDT, BEST/USDT, XRP/BTC, ETH/BTC and MIOTA/BTC.

This apparently was communicated 8 days prior to the change as I have been told. The bad news was sandwiched as a good announcement that new markets came - yeah, they did, but some were taken away aswell and I found the latter more significant.

The then remaining and new markets that can be traded on the exchange as of now were according to bitpanda: BTC/EUR, BTC/CHF, XRP/EUR, XRP/CHF, ETH/EUR, ETH/CHF, MIOTA/EUR, PAN/EUR, BEST/EUR, BEST/BTC and PAN/BTC.

That can also be NOT ANYMORE read here: https://blog.bitpanda.com/bitpanda-global-exchange-announcing-new-markets-and-repositioning-on-march-3rd-2020-6b3deb6f14ea ... NOT, because this link was taken down - you have to dig through the blog posts from that time to find remains of that information, here is one that comes close: https://blog.bitpanda.com/introducing-bitpanda-pro-the-secure-european-exchange-for-crypto-to-fiat-markets-with-50-off-trading-fees-in-march/ 

The current - as of 2020-08-17 - markets are, taken from https://www.bitpanda.com/de/pro/markets :

BTC / EUR XRP / CHF ETH / EUR BTC / CHF XRP / EUR MIOTA / EUR ETH / CHF LINK / EUR BEST / EUR PAN / EUR BEST / BTC PAN / BTC  

Here is my opinion:

I confess that I feel kind of odd about Bitpanda (as an Austrian I have heard of what they are doing). I liked the fact that there was an austrian company that engaged in crypto and had some ambitious projects with the PAN token and the BEST IEO and the launch of the exchange ... however, the past procedure (I'm talking about March) shows, that it may have been all be a little too much for them? I am also deducting that the exchange is rarely popular if they shut a few markets down. With this move, they are also cutting down possibilities for people to spend BEST tokens, slimming down the amount of future token burns. I was expecting the opposite happening on the exchange - in fact, in my opinion every token you can buy on Bitpanda should have at least one market on their exchange, if not several - on conventional Bitpanda they are offering asset swaps and the PAN token should even facilitate that - so why are they not offering a market for each pair on the exchange? They could at least list their own rate as the bottom line so you can buy/sell in every market?

Currently they seem to aim to polish up the exchange with the "Pro" branding and the holding of trading competitions. I am not participating because I don't have the funds, but I hope they're on the right way -- "to the moon" looks different in my eyes...

I was thinking a long time to post this - too long in fact and then I had to rewrite - because I didn't want to talk bad about Bitpanda. I wish them the best. But that move made me raise my eyebrows and I don't wanna let it go completely un-commented...

Is anybody of you on Bitpanda? Do you have any experiences?