Huobi Introduces New, Fully Regulated Over-the-Counter (OTC) Trading Desk for Larger Investors

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, Huobi, has just announced the launch of an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk which will be a fully regulated service for institutional investors and high net clients. The Huobi OTC Desk will support both crypto-to-crypto and fiat-to-crypto transactions. The fiat currencies to be fully supported include the US dollar (USD), Euro (EUR) and the British Pound Sterling (GBP).

Regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (FSC), the new trading desk will, according to the firm, allow investors trade “on a principal basis” under Huobi’s affiliate company called Huobi Technology. This shows a difference between the new desk and the previous method on otc.hbg.com which handles trading under Huobi Global Limited.

Speaking on the reason for this development, the Senior Sales Manager for Huobi Global, Jeff Adams, said the effort is basically to cater to interested investors and traders from other non-crypto and ore stabilized markets, who are reluctant to do anything in a generally unregulated market. He said:

“We see a lot of appetite out there from players in more established financial markets when it comes to digital assets but many are still uncomfortable jumping into unregulated trading environments. We also see an unfilled need for services aimed at those looking to make large volume transactions. Huobi OTC Desk is a big step forward to filling both of those needs.”

The publication on the official blog expressed that this new addition greatly helps Huobi’s goal to be a major provider and facilitator for all forms of digital asset trading. Huobi recognizes that OTC is a very important part of trading in most of the world’s major financial markets and making this available on their platform is a way to key into that need to offer these solutions for high net worth or professional clients.

The Huobi OTC Desk was announced at a Huobi event which took place in New York City. However, it should be noted that the platform is not intended for users in the United States.

Sometime in February, Huobi announced that it recorded a 100 percent increase in its trading volume for 2018 over the volume pulled in for 2017. This was probably due to the fact that their OTC trading desk was regarded as one of the most traded platforms in the world. Also, the firm had just recently launched Huobi Cloud at the time and within six months, successfully built more than 100 different partnerships.

The OTC market is a very fertile one that Huobi is trying to hone in on a bit more. Binance already did as the OTC trading was a major reason the firm was able to achieve $78 million in profits for the first quarter of 2019.