Let’s take a look at what OTC trading is, and how it can affect the price of Bitcoin.

OTC is a phrase you might have heard floating around this space, along with the implications that it’s this mysterious place where lots of BTC changes hands.

VIEW INFORMATIONAL VIDEO HERE

So right off the bat, OTC stands for Over the Counter, which means that they are trades that aren’t published on the public order books of crypto exchanges.

• These trades are facilitated thanks to companies who work with institutional investors and whales.
• Average OTC trades can range from $75,000-250,000 but they can also certainly reach into the millions of dollars’ worth of BTC as well.
• Some companies that offer these services include: Jump, Circle and Cumberland.

There are lots of reasons why a whale would want to conduct these trades over the counter instead of on a public exchange.

They might want to keep their identities out of the hands of something like a massively public centralized exchange.
They might not want to immediately and directly affect the price of the coin they want to trade.

At this point you might be wondering how OTC trades are able to affect the price of BTC at all if they are indeed meant to be private.

Like it or not, whales play huge roles in determining the overall sentiment of the crypto markets.
They can affect the markets intentionally, like the manipulation I explained in a past series (And Here).
Or this can happen unintentionally just by their very existence.
You can monitor the richest wallets of the coins that you are interested in and see what those wallets are up to. Are they accumulating? Are they decreasing?
Lots of people in this space are thirsty for any kind of indication for what the future holds in terms of price. Being able to decipher what is happening behind closed doors is something we are all able to do because remember, these are public blockchains... Well, most of them are at least.

So here are some basic tips:

• Fast movements in price that coincide with news, roadmaps and things like this most likely aren’t the whales at work.
• Instead, look for slow growth in a coins market cap that is not also accompanied by growth in volume on the popular exchanges.
• If the market cap is rising, the whales are accumulating. If it’s shrinking, they are selling.
• Affirm these suspicions by also monitoring the richest wallets of the coin you’re interested in. See if they are accumulating or selling off and if this matches with what’s happening with the the market cap.

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