The Cryptonomist interviewed Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, Deputy CEO of Bitpanda, a well-known cryptocurrency exchange.
Could you comment further on your partnership with France’s Société Générale?
When you look at the cryptocurrency landscape and the digital asset landscape across Europe right now, I think the important thing is that suddenly banks are getting into that space. why?
Thanks to MICA, the upcoming regulatory framework that will not only cover crypto companies in Europe, but also banks when it comes to crypto assets, will provide banks and other financial institutions with clarity and clarity on how to handle crypto assets and digital assets in general. Provide guidance.
So I think that was also the essence regarding Bitpanda’s partnership with Société Générale, their digital asset subsidiary, SG Forged. This large French banking group is now moving into the field and is already partnering with its subsidiaries. It’s been a few years, but I’m pretty active now. And like BitPanda, we always partner with market leaders in each market, for example in Germany we partnered with Deutsche Bank. And now we’re doing that with subscriptions from our company and our subsidiary, SG Forge. And you’re also doing the opposite.
Currently, we also offer stocks and products. So how do you think this diversification will impact your user base and growth strategy? And what makes BitPanda different from other platforms offering stocks and products?
of course. I think I want to be clear that we are not a stockbroker or a classic, traditional stockbroking company.
We are a crypto-native crypto platform. But what we’ve learned from the crypto asset class is that retail investors place great value on three properties that cryptocurrencies can offer: The first is subdivision. For example, it is already possible to buy fractions from 1 euro of Bitcoin. The second is transferability.
You can send some of your Bitcoins around the world at any time. And the third is tradability, which means availability. That means instead of 9-5 Monday through Friday, we’re open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So when we were looking at what other asset classes might be interesting to end customers to get the same characteristics, we thought this was it. We pilot it and bring it in as an asset from the traditional world.
For example, allow end customers to trade stocks and ETFs in fractions 24/7. And this is actually what we are offering on our platform. Because we believe that we are a complete digital asset platform that allows you to have cryptocurrencies and asset classes, tokenized assets, and traditional asset classes in a modern way.
You mentioned mica before. What other challenges and opportunities have you seen since this new regulation?
I think Mica is the first step. This is not the end goal, but rather the beginning of regulatory clarity across Europe regarding the regulation of crypto and digital assets in the financial services industry. But there is a second dimension. 1 is global. I think we will see similar regulatory frameworks in other markets and countries.
For example, the UAE, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are already planning to introduce similar frameworks based on the European framework, and similar frameworks will be introduced in other regions. The other one is in Europe. This is a first step, and along the way there will certainly be iterations and additional regulatory requirements based on the Mica framework. So I think that’s a good starting point. This is the first time that regulatory clarity has encouraged innovation in the European market, and in that case blockchain technology.
Still, we’ll definitely see a lot of movement in the coming years.
Can you share any insight into the security protocols you use to protect user assets?
I think the most important thing is preserving fully called assets, which we strongly believe in. It’s an industry standard. We’ve been doing it for over 10 years.
Therefore, the subject of safety is very important to us. We work with all types of companies and auditors, and our own auditors also regularly audit our funds and storage locations. We have several security procedures in place and comply with market standards in this regard.
Please understand that due to confidentiality reasons, we are unable to share any further information. Nevertheless, I think the important point is that we are the most regulated European platform in all of Europe.
Regarding cryptocurrencies, we are licensed in Germany. We are licensed by the Austrian FMA and are also regularly audited by the FMA. So I think we give our customers a very high level of trust when it comes to addiction.
What do you think about this trend when it comes to real-world assets and the fact that many platforms are launching their own stablecoins?
From a stablecoin perspective, I think stablecoins are very important to the industry as a whole in general. why? This is because it is ultimately a digital method of fiat currency that can be used, for example, to make instant payments or to interact on-chain. So we’ve already seen that with USDC and other US dollar payback stablecoins, but now we’re seeing a rise in euro-pegged stablecoins sealed with related euro ones, Euro C, Euro CB, etc. Chain activities are especially important. Yeah. And we are not just its followers.
We’re big fans and that’s why we’ve partnered with several products to give our customers access.
With the rise of DeFi and non-custodial solutions, how does Bitpanda want to position itself within this broader cryptocurrency ecosystem?
For us, it’s clear. We are not only the European market leader when it comes to cryptocurrencies, having been there for 10 years, but also the largest and most regulated European crypto platform. The company is the market leader in its home market with its own retail operations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and other markets around it, and the highly profitable com.com platform.
But we also believe in partnership. This is why, like banks in other markets, we partner with large banks across Europe such as Société Générale and Deutsche Bank to offer cryptocurrencies to end customers.
Are there any new products or services we can expect from Bitpanda in the near future? How can I stay competitive?
Other asset classes in the traditional world are also moving in cascading fashion, so we think it will be important to process and interact with them.
And for us, it’s always about regulatory clarity, safety, end-customer trust and the highest degree of convenience. So for us, what’s really important is how we make it as easy as possible for our customers to interact on the chain.
This is the way our platform and technology has been, and it’s also where we’ve really missed out on a lot in developing further into the future. And indeed, that is another trend these days.
For example, what do you think about AI and how it can work with crypto trading?
I think AI will completely change our society and the way we interact with society as a whole. And yet, we are not there yet. I think the next few years will be very interesting and promising, but it will also be very difficult for many people to really deal with this trend. Nevertheless, there are currently too many major use cases for AI in the financial services industry, especially in the cryptocurrency industry.
One is the efficiency of internal process automation. The other is customer interaction, where customers have real text-based conversations to somehow get more information, get data, get insights, what to buy, when to buy. You can conduct research on the process involved in making a decision.
And last but not least, there’s a question I always have to ask everyone I interview. What are your predictions for Bitcoin price over the next 10 years?
We’ll see where the price goes. I strongly believe that the adoption of blockchain technology is not just a trend, it is happening.
And we’re seeing, for example, regulations based on that all of a sudden, and big corporate use cases where some of the entertainment companies and gaming companies around the world are getting into the Web3 space.
Therefore, there will be more adoption of the technology as a whole, and therefore cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets based on that technology will also benefit tremendously. Therefore, I expect a very bright future for crypto assets and digital assets in general, and I am sure that this will be reflected in the prices as well. But let’s see.
Watch the full video interview with Bitpanda Deputy CEO here:
