While the London Stock Exchange once beckoned as the natural home for ambitious European fintech IPOs, Bitpanda has unceremoniously crossed it off their list—a decision that speaks volumes about the LSE’s precipitous fall from grace. The Austrian crypto platform’s rejection centers on a rather fundamental concern: insufficient market liquidity and trading depth, qualities one might reasonably expect from a supposedly world-class exchange.
The LSE’s stunning decline from fintech darling to rejected suitor reveals just how far London’s once-mighty exchange has fallen.
The numbers tell a sobering story. London’s IPO market managed to raise a paltry £200 million in the first half of 2025—hitting a 30-year low that makes one wonder whether the market has temporarily forgotten how capital formation works. This represents a catastrophic decline from 2021’s £8.8 billion haul, a drop so dramatic it borders on the theatrical.
Instead, Bitpanda’s gaze has shifted toward more liquid pastures: New York’s NYSE and Nasdaq, alongside Frankfurt‘s increasingly attractive marketplace. The logic appears unassailable—peer crypto firms Circle and Bullish have each raised over $1 billion in New York this year, demonstrating that American markets retain their appetite for digital asset plays.
Meanwhile, institutional heavyweights like BlackRock and Ark Investment have actively supported crypto IPOs, lending credibility that translates into actual trading volume. Frankfurt presents an intriguing middle path, offering proximity to Bitpanda’s European revenue base while providing the regulatory familiarity and stable investor interest that London apparently can no longer guarantee.
The company’s co-founder has emphasized liquidity as critical for both successful IPO execution and post-listing performance—a invigoratingly honest acknowledgment that beautiful prospectuses mean little if nobody trades the resulting shares.
This venue-shopping reflects broader market realities. The US government’s increasingly supportive stance on digital assets, combined with clearer regulatory frameworks in both American and EU markets, has created conditions far more favorable than Brexit-addled Britain’s uncertain regulatory landscape.
Bitpanda joins a growing exodus of companies like Wise, which similarly abandoned London for New York’s deeper liquidity pools. The crypto platform continues enhancing its compliance infrastructure while evaluating dual listing possibilities, though no fixed IPO timeline has emerged. As a crypto exchange operator, Bitpanda’s revenue likely benefits from the explosive growth in decentralized finance activity, which has seen total value locked surge from just $1 billion in 2020 to over $120 billion by 2025.
Smart money suggests they’ll follow the path of least resistance—and greatest liquidity.
