🖊 What are OTC deals for, and how does over-the-counter trading work?

This week, one of the largest OTC services, Whales Market, urged its users to share TON projects they would like to see on the platform. On this occasion, we've decided to turn to our educational column #howtoton and explain what OTC (Over-the-Counter) is.

⚫️ Traditionally, OTC deals are made by major players (investors, early miners, market makers) with the help of a third party: a guarantor or OTC service. Exchanges can involve anything: cryptocurrencies, tokens, whitelists, or even accounts with completed KYC.

⚫️ In the case of buying cryptocurrencies, OTC transactions help avoid losses due to excessive volatility of the asset, relieve the investor of the need to break up the order into many small transactions, and eliminate concerns about the liquidity volumes on the exchange.

⚫️ Moreover, OTC provides additional confidentiality and allows negotiating extra terms of the deal. For instance, buyers are often offered a discount but with a certain lock-up period or vesting (asset distribution in parts over a stipulated time).

⚫️ Let us remind you that one of the parties during an OTC is the guarantor — a trusted person with a good reputation or a special service where transactions are automated. However, it's crucial always to be on guard, as the OTC field has a particularly high number of scams: fake guarantors with incorrect nicknames or chat links, unscrupulous sellers/buyers, malicious software.

💡 Incidentally, the popular service swap.coffee initially planned to launch precisely as an OTC platform and later rebranded as a DEX aggregator. Apparently, there still aren't enough users with large capitals in TON for such a service to be in demand.

@thedailyton