Direct crypto
Crypto OTC desks: retail and institutional
How over-the-counter crypto trading actually works — real minimums from $10,000 to $1 million, how RFQ pricing hides the fee, and the settlement risk to manage before you wire.
Public order books have a structural problem: showing a large order to the market moves the price against you before you finish filling it. That is true on the New York Stock Exchange and it is more true in crypto, where books are thinner relative to the size some participants want to trade.
OTC desks exist to solve exactly that. This page covers how they work, what the minimums really are across the retail and institutional tiers, and where the cost hides — because it is not in a commission line.
Why OTC exists at all
Imagine trying to buy $5 million of a coin on a public exchange. Your first slice fills at the best offer. The second walks up to the next price level. By the time you are done you have paid materially more than the price you saw when you started, and every other participant watched it happen and traded ahead of you.
A desk removes that. You ask for a price for the entire $5 million. The desk quotes one number, fills it from its own inventory and its network of counterparties, and settles with you directly. Nothing appears on a public book until the desk manages its own position afterwards.
This is the same function authorised participants perform in the ETF market, incidentally — sourcing large blocks of the underlying without disrupting the market. See creation and redemption.
Minimums, honestly
The number you will see quoted most is $100,000, and it is a reasonable industry convention rather than a rule. The actual range is much wider, and knowing where you sit in it saves a lot of wasted enquiries.
| Tier | Typical minimum | Who it serves |
|---|---|---|
| Retail OTC | $10,000 – $50,000 | High-net-worth individuals; a newer tier that has expanded access |
| Standard desk | ~$100,000 | The generally accepted industry convention. Major exchange desks often start here |
| B2B / flexible | $10,000 – $15,000, with test trades from $5,000 – $10,000 | Business platforms willing to onboard smaller accounts |
| Institutional | $500,000 – $1 million+ | Funds, treasuries and corporates. Some desks decline meetings below $1 million |
| Broad-range platforms | $100 – $500,000 | Venues positioning between retail and institutional |
Figures are typical published ranges and vary by desk, jurisdiction and asset. Confirm directly with any desk rather than assuming a tier applies.
How an RFQ trade works, step by step
- Onboarding
Full identity verification and, for entities, beneficial ownership documentation. A US desk converting fiat to crypto is generally a money transmitter and subject to FinCEN registration, AML programme, customer identification and Travel Rule obligations.
- Request for quote
You specify asset, direction and size. The desk responds with a firm price, usually valid for a short window measured in seconds or minutes.
- Accept or decline
Nothing binds you until you accept. This is why requesting quotes from more than one desk costs you nothing.
- Settlement instructions
You send fiat or crypto per the agreed terms; the desk sends the other side. Larger relationships often use an escrow arrangement or simultaneous settlement.
- Delivery
Crypto arrives at your wallet or your custodian. Fiat arrives at your bank.
Where the desk makes money
This is the part worth being clear-eyed about. Desks typically do not charge a commission. Their margin is inside the quote.
So a quote that arrives with no fee attached is not free — it is a price that includes the desk's spread over the mid-market rate. The only way to know whether that spread is competitive is to compare, and you have two ways to do it. Request quotes from two or three desks for the same size at the same moment. And check the quote against the current mid-market price on a liquid exchange before you accept.
At institutional size, spreads can be under 0.1%, which genuinely beats what a public book would cost you for the same order. At smaller sizes, desk spreads are frequently wider than exchange fees — which is the whole reason the size threshold exists.
Below the OTC threshold, an exchange prices better
For most retail sizes a maker limit order on a licensed exchange beats a dealer spread. CEX.IO is registered with FinCEN as a money services business, holds money transmitter licences across US states under NMLS ID 1804170, and is authorised in Gibraltar as a DLT provider — a regime covering brokerage, custody and escrow services.
Retail OTC: worth it or not?
The retail OTC tier, with minimums in the $10,000 to $50,000 range, has expanded access considerably. Whether it is a good deal is a different question.
At $25,000, a well-executed maker limit order on a licensed exchange might cost you nothing to 0.2%. A retail OTC desk's spread on the same size is unlikely to beat that, because there is no meaningful market impact to avoid at that size — the exchange book absorbs it easily.
What retail OTC does offer is service: a person who handles the trade, confirms settlement, and answers the phone. For some buyers that is worth paying for, particularly on a first large purchase. Just be clear you are buying service rather than better pricing. Detail on the alternative in how to buy Bitcoin.
Institutional OTC
Above roughly $500,000, and certainly above $1 million, the calculus flips decisively. Market impact becomes the dominant cost, and a desk quoting one price for the block genuinely saves money.
Institutional relationships also add things retail flows do not need: credit lines allowing trades to settle without pre-funding, algorithmic execution over hours or days to minimise footprint, integration with qualified custodians so assets never touch an exchange wallet, and reporting suitable for audit.
This is also the tier that shows up indirectly in ETF flow data. When an institution buys spot exposure through a fund while shorting CME futures to capture the basis, the underlying crypto leg is often sourced through a desk — which is one reason flow figures are a weaker sentiment signal than they look. See flows explained.
Settlement risk, and how to manage it
In a bilateral trade, one side moves first. That is the fundamental risk in OTC and it is manageable rather than eliminable.
- Verify registration before wiring anything. FinCEN's MSB registrant list and the NMLS registry are both public.
- Start with a small test trade. Any desk worth dealing with will accommodate one, and several explicitly support test transactions from $5,000 to $10,000.
- Use escrow or simultaneous settlement where the desk offers it.
- Get the terms in writing before funds move — price, size, settlement window and delivery instructions.
- Never let urgency drive it. Pressure to settle immediately, on a quote that expires in seconds, on a first trade with a new counterparty, is the shape most OTC fraud takes.
Our take from the desk
Our honest view is that most people asking about OTC do not need it. The threshold where a desk genuinely beats a maker order on a licensed exchange is higher than the marketing suggests — somewhere north of $100,000 for liquid assets, and higher still for bitcoin specifically, which has the deepest books in the market. Below that, you are usually paying a dealer spread to avoid a market impact that would not have happened.