Over-the-counter (OTC) trading makes up a large portion of global crypto trading — but still employs a traditional workflow. Ethereum tokens (ERC20) have capabilities to enable significant security and efficiency improvements, enabling us to unlock a new type of liquidity altogether.

The existing workflow

OTC today is time consuming, hands-on, and expensive. Back office teams manage client discovery and on-boarding, trading is coordinated over a variety of chat apps, and settlement is slow and rife with risk.

We’ve taken a close look at this workflow, and have designed an integrated trading product hand-in-hand with several prominent OTC desks in the space.

Efficient counterparty discovery

The new discovery process is streamlined by enabling “Makers” to indicate what they’re interested in trading and “Takers” to publish requests directly to them. This instantly connects mutually interested traders based on tokens, sizes, and qualifications.

We’ve added a capability to the architecture known as Pub/Sub, where Makers subscribe to markets and Takers publish requests. This provides automated discovery that can be used by any peer on the AirSwap network.

Fast and compliant onboarding

Traders can now complete “know your customer” (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) verification with our third-party partner Wyre, a registered money services business (MSB).

After traders complete this KYC process, a non-fungible token (NFT) is deployed onto the Ethereum blockchain to indicate verification. This token is then public and visible to anyone, making for a decentralized network of verified traders.

Fully-integrated trading experience

The workflow on AirSwap is being optimized for counterparty discovery and efficient order communication and assessment, making for a streamlined trading experience end-to-end. Takers can broadcast requests and receive executable orders from makers in return, or those makers can engage in a 1:1 conversation to work out details.