Over-the-counter digital currency trading and lending firm Genesis closed the fourth quarter of 2019 with record high results in loan originations since its inception. Per a Jan. 30 press release, Genesis facilitated over $4.25 billion in loans since its incorporation in March 2018, which made Q4 the best in company history. Genesis originated more than $1.1 billion in loans and borrows for its institutional customers, with total active loans of $545 million, showing a 23% increase compared to $450 million in Q3. Genesis noted an increase in its active loan book and originations despite a 14% decline in the Bitcoin …

Ripple’s XRP sales continued to drop in the second half of 2019, with sales of the token reaching a historic low in Q4. According to a Jan. 22 blog post by Ripple — the firm behind the third largest crypto asset by market cap — total XRP sales in Q4 2019 accounted for $13.08 million, down more than 80% from the $66.24 million reported in Q3 2019. Ripple got rid of programmatic sales The massive decline in XRP sales in 2019 does not appear to be unexpected though. Specifically, quarterly XRP sales were consecutively dropping in 2019 as Ripple initiated …

Binance and Huobi have together received over 52% of total $2.8 billion illicit Bitcoin (BTC) transfers in 2019, according to a new report. Chainalysis’ findings Over the course of 2019, criminal entities moved a total of $2.8 billion in Bitcoin to cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a Jan. 15 study from Chainalysis. According to the New York-based firm, Binance and Huobi, two of the world’s largest crypto exchanges to date, have received 27.6% and 24.7% of total transfers from criminals in 2019. As such, the two major crypto trading platforms are allegedly responsible for acquiring over a half of all illicit …

American digital asset management fund Grayscale Investments is soon launching its diversified cryptocurrency investment product for public trading. Dubbed Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (DLC), the product includes five major cryptos including Bitcoin (ETH) and Ether (ETH), and will soon be available to trade on the over-the-counter (OTC) share trading marketplace OTCQX Best Market, the firm announced Nov. 22. Launched in 2018, DLC is an open-ended fund that provides market cap-based exposure to the upper 70% of the digital currency asset class. It will now be publicly traded under the symbol GDLCF. GDLCF is the fourth publicly-traded investment product launched …

Up until early 2018, major cryptocurrency markets the likes of South Korea and Japan demonstrated high premiums for Bitcoin. At the 2017 peak, when the Bitcoin price was trading at around $20,000 in the U.S. spot market, Bitcoin was being traded in South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange market for around 26,000,000 Korean won, equivalent to about $22,000. This difference is now known as the Kimchi premium. Since then, starting with the introduction of various regulatory frameworks by South Korea to reduce regional premiums that included the prohibition of trading cryptocurrencies with foreigners in the local market, premiums in major markets have …

From the outside looking in, the United States seems to present a host of amazing financial opportunities. However, when it comes to launching cryptocurrency exchanges or altcoin trading platforms, these possibilities start to dwindle and fade quite rapidly. In this regard, over the past few years, the U.S. regulatory landscape has seemed so hostile toward the crypto industry that a number of prominent exchange operators have preferred not to serve U.S. citizens at all — a case in point being Bancor, a decentralized liquidity network, that recently decided to block American citizens from using its website to convert its tokens. …

Cryptocurrency exchange Coindirect launches an over-the-counter (OTC) brokerage in South Africa. As industry news outlet CoinInsider reported on Sept. 27, the platform creates a vast liquidity pool by integrating with global platforms, allows for Bitcoin (BTC) price locks after a confirmation and for instant processing with no fees or slippage. Aimed at high volume users The service lets high volume users to avoid lengthy transactions that can reportedly take over 12 hours. The exchange’s COO Nic Haralambous added: “During our first two years in the industry we have paid close attention to which users are driving the volume of crypto …

Cryptocurrency giant Binance plans to roll out its over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform for Chinese yuan in October. Chinese market targets Yi He, Binance co-founder and chief marketing officer (CMO) announced the news at a media session on Sept. 17, as Binance confirmed to Cointelegraph on Sept. 19. According to the CMO, Binance’s new OTC onramp is scheduled to launch next month and only targets the Chinese market, as the current plan envisions supporting the Chinese renminbi only, a Binance spokesperson said. To date, Binance has already set up an OTC trading desk that provides users with large transactions service, as …

Singapore-based crypto and blockchain company Huobi Group has rolled out an exchange in Argentina, planning to add support for a fiat-to-cryptocurrency gateway. Per a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Sept. 17, Huobi officially launched Huobi Argentina using Huobi Cloud, a service that allows users to build over-the-counter (OTC) and digital asset exchanges on top of Huobi’s existing platform. Fiat-to-crypto gateway For now, Huobi Argentina’s users can purchase digital currencies with Argentine Pesos (ARS) using Huobi’s OTC service, but the exchange is planning to set up a fiat gateway to trade ARS for crypto in October of this year. This …

The Winklevoss brothers-led Gemini crypto exchange has introduced its new clearing and settlement product Gemini Clearing. No OTC desk on Gemini Gemini announced the new clearing and settlement solution in a blog post on Sept. 5, explaining that the Gemini Clearing allows traders to negotiate off-exchange or over-the-counter (OTC) crypto trades using Gemini accounts. Gemini Clearing is a fully digital platform providing regulated clearing and settlement services for pre-arranged off-exchange or OTC trades, which intends to reduce counterparty risk as well as ensure immediate settlements. The post clarifies that the Gemini does not have an OTC trading desk. Brokers allowed …

Nelson Minier, head of over-the-counter (OTC) trading at major cryptocurrency platform Kraken, has stated that the OTC desk’s trades per month have increased by a factor of 20 since the beginning of last year. Minier gave his remarks in an episode of The Block’s podcast, The Scoop, on Aug. 20. Minier further remarked that “Bitcoin and Ether are the big — the whales of our desk,” additionally estimating that Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Monero (XMR), and Tether (USDT) were the top five cryptocurrencies traded by volume. Minier also gave his projections on BTC price, saying: “I don’t …

Daniel Matuszewski, head of over-the-counter (OTC) trading at the money transfer and BitLicensed crypto trading company Circle, has resigned. The Block reported news of Matuszewski’s departure on Aug. 2. He apparently said that he was resigning to pursue a “brand new entrepreneurial opportunity in crypto.” According to the report, an anonymous source has said that Nick Gustafson will be entering Matuszewski’s prior role. Gustafson previously worked as a trader at cryptocurrency exchange Kraken’s OTC unit, and appears to have worked as a trader at Circle for a little over a year, according to his LinkedIn profile. Circle’s OTC Department As …