{"slug":"otc-desk","term":"OTC Desk","category":"Whales & On-Chain","definition":"An OTC desk executes large crypto trades directly between two parties, off the public order book. Funds, miners, and treasuries use them to buy or sell size — often $1M-plus blocks — without moving the market or signalling intent. That's why big players rarely leave the footprints retail expects on exchanges.","street":"Where whales trade so your chart never sees them coming.","depth":["The flow: a client requests a quote for a block — commonly $250k minimum, nine figures at the big desks — the desk prices it against an index with a spread, and settlement happens wallet-to-wallet, never crossing a public order book. The desk then hedges its inventory on exchanges in small clips over hours or days, which is why big flows leak into the market slowly instead of as one candle.","The retail misread runs both ways. First: 'no exchange inflows, so no one's selling' — OTC is precisely how the largest sellers avoid inflow metrics, so quiet on-chain data doesn't clear the coast. Second: a whale-alert transfer into a labelled OTC wallet is not an incoming dump — the block never hits the book directly. What actually reaches your chart is the desk's hedging drip, hours later, unlabelled. Size your trades on price and liquidity, not on guessing OTC intent."],"live":{"label":"Large prints on four exchange tapes, live","href":"/tools/whale-alert"},"related":["whale","order-book","slippage","market-depth"]}