An introduction and guide to over-the-counter trading of Bitcoin, Ether, Tether, and other tokens on Okcoin.
Last week, we announced the launch of a new feature on Okcoin, our over-the-counter trading desk. The OTC Desk is available for Okcoin customers looking to buy and sell large amounts of top cryptocurrencies for USD. This guide explains what an OTC desk is, what makes Okcoin’s desk different and how qualifying customers can get started trading OTC today. You can also refer to our OTC Desk FAQ here.
Table of contents
What makes Okcoin’s OTC Desk different?
What is an OTC desk?
An over-the-counter, or OTC, desk is a tool for making direct, private trades. Generally, OTC trading is used when making high-volumes trades, in order to avoid disrupting the regular spot market. OTC desks let traders directly request a quote to buy or sell large amounts of crypto.
The direct, private nature of the trade also helps traders avoid what’s known as slippage — the difference in price between the moment the trade starts and the moment it ends. When trading on the spot market, a large trade is frequently broken up into multiple transactions. For example, if you’re looking to buy $15,000 in BTC, it’s not likely that there is a buyer on the exchange at any given moment who wants to buy that full sum of BTC. Thus, your order for $15,000 in BTC is automatically broken into smaller orders from different buyers who have placed their buy orders at slightly different prices per BTC.
With OTC trading, you agree to the full price for your purchase and can complete it in a single order, at the agreed upon price.
What makes Okcoin’s OTC desk different?
We offer two formats for making OTC trades — a do-it-yourself tool available for all Okcoin customers, as well as a private direct chat for select customers, depending on trading volume.
In either case, we make it easy for customers to request a quote (how much you want to buy or sell), we send you a quote and you either accept it or wait for another quote. Customers can currently buy and sell BTC, ETH, USDT for USD via our OTC Desk, with a minimum order amount of $10,000. We plan to add more cryptocurrency options in the future to give OTC customers even more diversity.
Okcoin customers who use our OTC Desk enjoy
- Privacy — don’t move markets with larger trades
- Speed — OTC trading is available 24/7. Your trade will be completed instantly.
- Zero slippage — Once you agree to a quoted price, it will be the price for the entire order.
- Liquidity — whether you’re looking to buy or sell a large amount, we will complete your trade swiftly at a competitive price.
How to trade OTC on Okcoin
Okcoin offers two different OTC trading formats to our customers. All customers have access to our OTC Desk via the Okcoin website, while select high-net-worth customers are eligible for our one-on-one individual chat service.
Read on for a detailed breakdown of how to trade OTC on Okcoin.
Step 1: Verify your identity
If you are not an Okcoin customer yet, welcome! You can create an account in a few minutes here.
Once you are registered on Okcoin, in order to trade on the OTC Desk, you will need to pass identity verification level 2, which requires that you submit your photo ID.
Step 2: Fund your account
To start, you’ll need to transfer assets to your Funding Account. On the top right corner of the Okcoin site, click Assets, and then select Deposit in the dropdown menu. Next, deposit one of the supported currencies on our OTC Desk — USD, BTC, ETH, or USDT — that you want to trade.
If you already have funds on Okcoin in one of your trading accounts (Spot or Margin), then you simply need to transfer them to your Funding Account. To do this, click on Transfer from the same dropdown menu in the top right corner of your screen. From there, you can select a currency and transfer from one of your trading accounts to your Funding Account.
Step 3: Go to the OTC Desk and start trading
Once your assets are in your Funding Account, navigate to the OTC Desk by clicking on OTC in the main navigation bar at the top of the site, or you can find it in the footer at the very bottom. Or simply click here.
Once you’re on the OTC Desk page, you can select to either buy, sell or do a two-way trade with BTC, ETH or USDT against USD (again, stay tuned for more assets to come!). By clicking Buy or Sell you can either buy or sell one of the supported cryptocurrencies for USD. You can also click Two-way to see both buy and sell quotes side by side and decide what side of the trade (buy or sell) you prefer to go with.
Step 4: Get a quote
Once you decide what trade you want to make, you can set what amount of crypto or USD you want to trade. The Get a quote button will then turn blue. Click the Get a quote button and a price quote will appear on the right hand side of the screen. You will then have 10 seconds before the live quote expires. If the quote expires, you will need to re-quote.
The price quoted is the final price for the requested trade, including Okcoin and network fees.
Step 5: Trade OTC
If you have enough funds in your Funding Account to complete the trade, you will then be able to click the Buy or Sell buttons. If you don’t, you will be able to click the Deposit button to add funds into your Funding Account.
All quotes are recorded in the table below the quote screen. You may choose to re-quote past entries under the Action column. Completed orders are in the Trade History tab.
OTC trading with an Okcoin rep
Okcoin offers a white glove one-on-one chat service to help eligible clients who want to execute very large orders. Our team of business development representatives are available 24/7 to create a dedicated communication channel to facilitate your OTC trades at any time and any trade size. Please reach out direclty to our business development team (otc@okcoin.com) to learn more.
For very large orders requested via our web interface show above, customers may be prompted to reach out directly to the Okcoin business development team via the above email to complete the transaction directly with a representative.
