Hedge funds and miners are shifting sales to over-the-counter trading in what is a departure from peer-to-peer crypto tradition, writes Bloomberg in a recent article. And institutional investors are becoming more involved in the $220 billion cryptocurrency market than many observers may realize.
Buyers such as hedge funds have replaced high-net-worth individuals as the biggest buyers of large swaths of digital coins worth more than $100,000 through private transactions, according to Bobby Cho, global head of trading at Cumberland, the Chicago-based cryptocurrency trading unit of DRW Holdings LLC, which handles the over-the-counter purchases.
Meanwhile, the big sellers, miners, whose computers generate coins by confirming transactions — have begun scheduling regular coin sales instead of holding or waiting to offload them during market rallies. Many of the largest miners have also set up their own liquidity desks and operations.