On July 11, fraudsters hacked into digital payment platform Cashaa’s over-the-counter desk, which serves Indian customers, and stole 336 Bitcoin (BTC), worth approximately $3.1million. Although Cashaa stated that there have been no users affected by this hack, they did put a hard stop on all crypto-related transactions for 24 hours to understand the incident better. Cashaa is a United Kingdom-based crypto-friendly bank that deals with Bitcoin OTC operations and works with major traditional and crypto exchanges in India. According to an official statement, the incident took place with an OTC transaction manager based in East Delhi, India, whose personal computer …

Shares in Grayscale’s Ethereum Investment Trust (ETHE) have crashed by 50% in just four days on the secondary, over-the-counter (OTC) markets. With each share representing 0.094 Ether (ETH), the sharp retracement has seen the price premium on the trust’s shares fall from 750% to roughly 360% in less than two weeks. ETHE’s current price of $102.5 means that investors are willing to pay an implied price of $1,090 per Ether in order to access ETH through the trust on the OTC markets. The crash coincided with the unlocking of many ETHE shares that were purchased on Grayscale’s primary market — …

Many investment firms have launched crypto exchange-traded funds, but so far, none has found favor with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. Firms keep trying, though, and this past week, two more tendered applications for crypto ETF-like products — if not pure-play Bitcoin ETFs have emerged. WisdomTree, an asset manager and ETF specialist, filed an N-1A form registration statement on June 16 with the agency for an ETF that would invest up to 5% of its portfolio in cash-settled Bitcoin (BTC) futures contracts offered by Chicago Mercantile Exchange. WisdomTree was close to applying to the SEC in January for …

Top crypto exchange, Binance, seems to be providing trading services for mainland Chinese customers despite the local ban, a report published yesterday by China National Radio, or CNR, alleges. According to CNR, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, has been promoting a website called “binancezh.com” on his Weibo page. Originally founded in China a few months prior to the local 2017 ban prohibiting cryptocurrency trading, Binance moved overseas soon after the crackdown and is currently headquartered in the Cayman Islands and Seychelles. As noted by 8btc, a local cryptocurrency news outlet, “zh” can be short for the Mandarin …

Chinese authorities have dismantled a group of alleged scammers posing as Huobi exchange officials, who were operating an over-the-counter (OTC) website. As reported by local media outlet Jinse, on May 20 police arrested 12 suspects in Guangdong province believed to be behind the scheme, after an investigation found that WeChat crypto trading groups had been infiltrated from November 2019. Scammers persuaded victims to invest in the fake OTC platform, which was used for money laundering, and then sent the defrauded money to overseas accounts. Fraud committed through WeChat Local authorities announced that they seized computers, mobile phones, bank cards, and …

During a fireside chat as part of Consensus: Distributed on May 12, Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive and founder of Binance, said that the top cryptocurrency exchange is seeing a spike in user registrations. Zhao noted that new registrations amid the Bitcoin (BTC) halving have recently approached levels last witnessed at the peak of the 2017 bull run. “The new user registrations are picking up very aggressively, like getting close to the sort of [new users] generated under 2018,” Zhao said. New user registrations increase "aggressively" Binance’s CEO also noted that the exchange’s customer support department is receiving a high …

Binance’s United States arm has launched an over-the-counter portal for trades worth $10,000 or more, according to an official announcement on Monday. OTC desk and Binance.US’s requirements OTC trades are negotiated directly between the buyer and the seller and do not show up in exchange’s public order books, the cryptocurrency platform clarified in an FAQ. That allegedly allows for the movement of large sums with better privacy and without the potential to affect the market. The OTC platform currently supports 12 cryptocurrencies as well as U.S. dollars, although USD withdrawal is only available to users who have passed Level 3 …

A $5 million online heist in Brazil targeting Spanish multinational financial institution, Banco Santander was thwarted after the funds were seized with local over-the-counter (OTC) crypto exchanges. The perpetrators immediately moved to convert the stolen funds into Bitcoin (BTC), however, the cash triggered many of the bank accounts of the exchanges to be frozen upon receipt, according to local press The Bitcoin Portal. The media outlet claims to have obtained internal documents from Santander detailing an investigation into the incident, revealing that the institution is uncertain as to exactly how the funds were stolen. $5 mln stolen from Banco Santander …

Over-the-counter (OTC) liquidity provider B2C2 has published a report analyzing the trading spreads exhibited across its Bitcoin (BTC) market and three leading institution-facing spot exchanges throughout March. The study finds that spreads widened significantly amid the dramatic crash of March 12–13, the largest drop in the price of Bitcoin since 2013. Bitcoin order spreads exceed 10% immediately on March 13 As the crash began on March 12, bid-ask spreads for batches of 25 BTC bounced from close to single-digit basis points to 200 on its platform — equating to roughly 5%. The report also notes spreads exceeding 10% on one …

Tokenomica, a crypto asset exchange based in Malta, has announced over-the-counter, or OTC, cryptocurrency trading for large participants. The Mediterranean-based exchange now offers participants the ability to trade large amounts of BTC for Euros, separate from the exchange’s order books, Tokenomica announced on its blog on Feb. 18. The exchange’s announcement made clear that other cryptocurrencies would also be available for OTC trading but remained ambiguous as to other trading pairs with the Euro. “BTC, ETH Waves and WEST are available for Euro trading,” a Tokenomica representative clarified to Cointelegraph in an email. “Other listed assets (XRP and USDT) are …

UK-based crypto lending and liquidity provider B2C2 is teaming up with SFOX, a leading U.S. crypto company serving institutional investors, according to a Feb. 12 press release. This partnership is aimed at letting SFOX clients (including asset managers, family offices and high net worth individuals) access B2C2’s large liquidity pools and better-priced over-the-counter (OTC) markets though a single point of entry. Danny Kim, head of growth at SFOX, said: “We are delighted to partner with B2C2, the largest OTC liquidity provider whose streaming pricing and electronic trading capabilities are relied on by institutional market participants globally. SFOX clients will now …

Off-exchange liquidity venues have been widely used by institutional investors to keep large trades confidential. Although they are not perfect and can be gamed by high-frequency traders, off-exchange alternative trading systems remain popular in equities. They are starting to gain traction in the cryptocurrency sector, prompting industry participants to seek out more advanced, institutional-grade tools to most effectively trade “in the dark.” For investors concerned with order information leakage, there are platforms that are engineered to prevent this critical pain point. Off-exchange use is on the rise Recent data from Tabb Group shows that the share of United States equities …