EXCLUSIVE: Bitpanda Pro, Leading EU Digital Assets Platform, Appoints Former J.P. Morgan Exec As CEO

Bitpanda, founded in 2014 by Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek and Christian Trummer as a crypto-trading company aiming to modernise investments in the era of digital assets, has grown into a leading European investment platform. Furthermore, Bitpanda Pro, Bitpanda’s fully-regulated digital asset exchange, is renowned for building prosperous relationships with European financial institutions and supporting their transition from traditional financial services into the crypto space. In fact, Bitpanda Pro has been prolific, quadrupling their average daily trading volume and tripling the numbers of active traders in the first half of 2021. And the company continues to show signs of development, marked recently by the appointment of Joshua Barraclough, a former J.P Morgan executive, as the first CEO for Bitpanda Pro.

Joshua Barraclough – During his time at J.P. Morgan, Barraclough served as Global Head of the Fintech Team, evaluating partnerships, incubation and investment opportunities in order to accelerate the company’s growth strategy. This experience will hopefully enable Barraclough to bridge the gap between traditional markets and emerging digital assets in Bitpanda Pro’s journey.

Eric Demuth, Co Founder and CEO of Bitpanda, echoes this desire, stating that ‘with Joshua’s exceptional track record of innovating and launching new business, products, and services, and his demonstrated ability in building successful organizations, we are confident that he will be a driving force and lead Bitpanda Pro in its next chapter of growth and success.’

After speaking with Barraclough, we were able to get insights into how the new CEO intends on tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the company at the moment.

How To Maintain The Success Of Bitpanda Pro – Despite being a trusted exchange by experienced traders, Bitpanda Pro has not had the same exposure as Bitpanda. Barraclough seeks to change this area of marketing to ‘really make our exchange and institutional offering one of our top assets and the number one exchange in Europe.’

‘My first steps are to sure-up our liquidity and pricing and we have launched a market maker equity incentive program that will make our traded pairs the most attractive in the EU. We are also hiring a team of very experienced institutional sales folks to really start building our presence more around Europe’, said Barraclough. It is clear that this will line up some exciting potential partnerships and accelerate the prominence of Bitpanda Pro.

How To Make Crypto Mainstream – Cryptocurrency investments have been gaining momentum in financial markets for quite some time, but more still needs to be done for full adoption of crypto by the average consumer. For Barraclough, the cornerstone of this is financial literal, as simple as that might sound. It is paramount, especially in today’s pandemic and post-pandemic climate to have a solid base to stand on in order to take part.

‘The old formula for financial stability is slowly becoming obsolete and missing out is not an option. Historically we have been trained to think that it’s better if other people take care of our money, but it just isn’t the case. We sleep so much more soundly if you are in control and have an understanding of where our money is and why. Financial literacy is a key thing for us at Bitpanda. It isn’t enough to give someone the tools without showing people how to use them. There are so many YouTube videos out there that explain the basics, and you don’t need to understand everything, just enough to make the right decisions for you.’ Financial literacy with contemporary topics being covered, from an early age, is something that would really change the way people think about investment, including crypto and could influence the adoption greatly.

The Bitpanda Pro Ecosystem, 5 Years From Now – Given the rapidly evolving nature of crypto, policymakers and regulators seem to have begun to take the opportunity to proactively embrace a promising technology. With this in mind Bitpanda Pro could very well become a ‘must-have’ asset in every investor’s portfolio before the next 5 years.

‘I think we will see the digitisation and introduction of more traditional assets along with simplification. One example is that some private companies are looking at digitising their cap table (shareholding), which has the potential to create a liquid market for secondary trading of private shares with much easier transfer rights. That sounds small, but it’s really quite significant, as a very opaque system with traditionally complicated rights could become something very simple with clear value ascribed that could easily be measured and transferred or used as collateral for something else. Crypto is a very simple way of bridging that value transfer and governance.’ Bringing together these ecosystems with digital assets is one example of what is possible, but there are so many great opportunities and wholesale adoption in the near future could very well become inevitable.

It is clear that the appointment of Barraclough marks an important point in the Bitpanda Pro’s history, for the vision, initiative and desire that is evident from this change could very well make the company a global leader in time to come. In a dynamically evolving ecosystem, Bitpanda Pro is most definitely one to keep an eye out for.