How OTC Desks Work (And When You Should Use One)

On a public exchange, a large buy or sell order has to work through the order book, filling against progressively worse prices as it consumes available liquidity — a phenomenon known as slippage. For a $200 trade this is irrelevant. For a $200,000 trade, it can meaningfully change your effective price, and it also broadcasts your activity to the rest of the market in real time.

An OTC (over-the-counter) desk solves this by taking the trade off the public order book entirely. You agree on a price directly with the desk — often after a short negotiation — and that price is locked before you commit funds. The desk then sources or absorbs the position using its own liquidity relationships, and you receive exactly the quoted amount regardless of how the broader market moves in the meantime.

The process itself is straightforward: you submit a request specifying the asset, direction (buy or sell), and amount; a trader responds with a firm quote; once you accept, settlement is arranged by wire transfer, e-transfer, or in-person cash depending on the size and your preference. Because everything is handled by a dedicated contact rather than an automated matching engine, OTC trades also tend to come with more flexibility around timing and structure.

As a rule of thumb, if a trade is large enough that you'd worry about moving the market price against yourself, it's large enough to be worth a phone call to an OTC desk instead. bitMachina's desk handles trades starting at $10,000 CAD with no upper limit — see the OTC Desk page to get a quote.