Major global crypto exchange Huobi has launched a regulated over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk for institutional investors, according to a blog post on May 15.

The new OTC crypto trading platform, Huobi OTC Desk, is fully regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (FSC), and enables major fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto trading pairs.

Unlike the existing Huobi’s OTC retail products, the new OTC trading desk enables a principal OTC trading process under Huobi Technology, Huobi’s regulated OTC trading entity in Gibraltar, while the existing OTC offering on otc.hbg.com enables peer-to-peer (P2P) tradings under Huobi Global, the firm clarified.

Jeff Adams, Senior Sales Manager for Huobi Global, stated that the launch of Huobi OTC Desk was driven by demand from investors for large volume transactions, claiming that the company has seen an “unfilled need” for such services.

Speaking at a special Huobi meetup event in New York, Adams also stressed a surge of interest by traditional traders who “are still uncomfortable jumping into unregulated trading environments.”

According to the announcement, Huobi OTC Desk supports major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), as well as fiat currencies including the United States dollar (USD), euro (EUR), and British pound sterling (GBP).

The launch of Huobi’s regulated OTC Desk follows the firm’s acquisition of a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) license from the Gibraltar FSC in late 2018, which enabled the exchange to attract institutional investors.

Earlier this year, Huobi reported that its P2P OTC desk has become one of the most traded OTC platforms worldwide. The desk offers OTC transactions in bitcoin, ether, eos (EOS), major stablecoin tether (USDT), Huobi Token (HT), as well as ripple (XRP), which was listed in March 2019.

OTC trading has seen increased popularity recently, with Binance exchange reporting that its OTC offering drove major profits for the exchange in Q1 2019.