BEST and Bitpanda Global Exchange: Recapping the first three weeks

On August 7th 2019 at 13:00 CET we were able to hit an important milestone: After 2 years of development, we successfully launched the Bitpanda Global Exchange (Bitpanda GE). Since we are already well-known as a highly successful broker platform for easily buying and selling digital assets like Bitcoin and precious metals — it was logical for us to go a step further and launch the Bitpanda GE.

Unlike the Bitpanda platform, which was developed for users who want easy access to digital assets, the target audience for the Bitpanda GE is the exact opposite: experienced traders, professionals and institutions.

The first 24 hours on the Bitpanda Global Exchange

When the Bitpanda Global Exchange opened its gates on August 7th thousands of users were waiting to see how it will perform and if we, as a company that is well-known and respected for its broker service, can manage to pull off this task. And we were: More than 1,000 people were actively trading on launch day, a lot more watched how the Bitpanda Global Exchange performs. During the first 24 hours, the trading volume was €1.722 million, which is not bad for a completely new exchange. The most active market was BTC/EUR, followed by BEST/EUR for our own Bitpanda Ecosystem Token.

Since then, we rolled out 15 smaller updates during the first three weeks. These updates included a feature to stabilise the platform, increase the performance on the API as well as several improvements on the user interface. Plus we are working on updates for order processing, order book and account latency (which we will roll out in scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, September 3rd).

BEST and the way forward

As you know we successfully raised €43.6 million, making BEST the most successful European IEO to date. A lot of the investors, especially those who participated in the private sale with higher amounts, believe in the long term vision of Bitpanda becoming a thriving ecosystem for all kinds of different asset classes and exciting products.

This transition from a successful and profitable digital asset broker with 120 employees to a diverse investing platform way beyond our current scale doesn’t happen overnight. Without going into too much detail (you can read up on our immediate plans in the CEO letter we published around the BEST launch) do know that BEST will play a vital role in all our future products, features and services. So apart from the possibility to pay for trading fees and get a 25% fee reduction on the broker and the exchange, BEST’s use-cases will also expand with the growth of the Bitpanda ecosystem itself.

The immediate next steps include continuing to onboard those who the Bitpanda Global Exchange was designed for: experienced traders, professionals and institutional investors. Every department at Bitpanda is working towards the goal of increasing the volume on the Bitpanda Global Exchange while offering the same high-quality service as usual on the Bitpanda broker platform. This also includes constantly adding new products, new features, new digital assets, new trading pairs and of course new incentives to actually hold BEST.

You can buy BEST here.

Thank you for being part of our journey!