First BEST token burn: Recap, new features and outlook for 2020

We burned (destroyed) 10,862,539 BEST, the equivalent of €750,600 on January 30th, 2020 at 2:00 pm CET. We did this one quarter earlier than initially planned, and we’ll keep doing this every quarter until 50% of the total tokens are destroyed. Bitpanda co-founder and CEO, Paul Klanschek, shares some insights on the burn event, some newly launched BEST features and the plans for 2020.

Dear Bitpanda Community,

Today, we conducted the first token burn for BEST. We burned more than 25% of BEST used for trading premiums, which means that those tokens were destroyed for good. In total, we burnt 10,862,539 BEST (2.02% of the outstanding supply) which we collected in one quarter between October 30th, 2019 and January 30th, 2020.

Here you can find the relevant infos related to the first BEST burn event: the total supply and the burn transaction.

We did this one quarter early, as we wanted to speed things up and to show our commitment to staying focused on developing BEST and making it as interesting as possible for all our current and future users.

Some words on our plans for 2020

We are fully aware that we need to deliver in the course of 2020, as we set ourselves ambitious plans. Bitpanda grew a lot over the last few months — both in terms of product and team size. I am convinced that the current setup is really strong in terms of features and the team we have here in Vienna.

This year we will focus heavily on expanding our existing user base, which is currently at around 1.1 million users. Our strategy this year is to further improve our existing products and enter new, promising markets. We are heavily focusing on maintaining our position as a trusted platform and keeping our user base interested. We are also looking at getting a couple of additional licences, as staying at the forefront of regulation is a key objective at Bitpanda.

Those plans are not only limited to the broker platform, which of course has the most potential to onboard new users, but also on the Bitpanda Global Exchange. We already have a solid strategy in place for the exchange and we’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.

BEST growth, new features for BEST and outlook

BEST usage is on the rise: up to 30% of our active users already use BEST to get a discount on trading premiums. We at Bitpanda decided to move the first burn event forwards from April to January and burn earlier than initially planned. This is because more users than expected were already using BEST on a daily basis, because of this, we collected enough for a first burn event!

As part of the first BEST burn, we rolled out two new BEST features this week:

• Metals insurance and storage fees can now be paid with BEST. The same mechanism as for cryptocurrencies applies, so you get a 25% premium reduction, plus a potential additional discount depending on the price of BEST, as we guarantee a price of €0.12 for paying trading premiums.
• We added a BEST upselling button in the buy checkout. When users buy a digital asset on Bitpanda and don’t have BEST in their wallet, they see a “buy BEST to pay your trading premium” message so they can buy BEST directly, with a simple click of a button.

Coming up during the next weeks:

• We will add lower deposit fees for BEST VIP holders. This means that you will then pay around 20% less in deposit premiums when you choose SOFORT or credit cards as a funding option.
• BEST VIPs will be able to vote for cryptocurrency listings on Bitpanda. These polls will be conducted directly on the Bitpanda platform. The first one will be announced soon. Note that only some of the listings will be decided this way.
• And lastly, we’re also working on a really cool BEST feature for Bitpanda Savings.

Outlook next BEST burns

Staying true to BEST’s vision paper promise, we will then facilitate quarterly burns on every last Thursday, meaning the next token burns will be:

I’m super excited about the projects we are working on and the strategy we will execute in 2020. I’m happy to have such a great team and users who stand by Bitpanda’s vision.

Paul Klanschek