Crypto OTC in Ireland: who it is for and what to ask

OTC, short for over the counter, means a trade negotiated directly with a dealer or desk instead of being matched on an exchange's public order book. You ask for a quote on a large amount, agree a price, and settle by bank transfer or inside an account. It exists because a very large order placed on an ordinary order book can push the price against the buyer before it fills. For an Irish client the practical points are that minimums are high, the choice of desks that clearly serve Ireland is small, and we could not verify any walk-in OTC office or crypto shop in the country.

If you are buying a few hundred or even a few thousand euro, OTC is almost certainly not for you, and the ordinary routes in our guide to buying crypto in Ireland will be cheaper and simpler. This page is for the question that arises once the sums are large.

Who OTC is for

Desks exist for people and organisations moving amounts large enough that spread and slippage matter: funds, companies holding crypto in treasury, family offices, miners, and wealthy individuals. The pitch is a firm price for the whole order, quoted before you commit, with settlement arranged in a few hours to a day. That is a convenience, not a discount. The cost is in the spread between the price you are quoted and the market price, which is why the question to ask is always "what is the all-in price?".

Kraken's OTC pages are explicit about this: they state no additional commission and that the quoted price is the full price, so the dealer's margin sits in the spread. We could not find a published spread figure for any desk. Third-party sites quote ranges for large orders, but without a primary source we will not repeat them.

Listed minimums and settlement

Published minimums are the main filter, so here is what we found. The table sets out what each desk says, where we could read it, and where we could not. The dates are 5 October 2026.

Treat that as a starting list, not a recommendation, and confirm every figure on the desk's own page. Some operator pages blocked our automated check and are marked unverified. Kraken's pages for different regions disagree on the minimum, so the honest summary is "USD 50,000 to 100,000, ask". We also found other firms with passports covering Ireland, including institutional liquidity providers, but could not confirm their minimums or whether they onboard Irish clients, so we do not list them as serving Ireland.

Kraken's own help pages say that RFQ-style quotes need a lower verification level than its chat-based desk, and that direct bank settlement and currencies vary by locale. Read the page for your region. Our Kraken Ireland guide covers the standard exchange.

MiCA and who is allowed to run a desk

Since the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) came into full effect, exchanging crypto for funds, executing orders for clients and similar activities are regulated crypto-asset services. A firm needs authorisation from a national regulator, then can serve other EU countries by passporting. In Ireland the regulator is the Central Bank, and Ireland's transitional period ended on 30 December 2025 according to the Central Bank's FAQ. Our regulation guide explains the framework, and the list of firms authorised in Ireland shows who actually holds authorisation.

When we read the ESMA interim register on 5 October 2026, twelve entities had Ireland as their home state, including Kraken's two Payward entities, and a Dublin-based institutional firm, StoneX Digital International. None was a walk-in OTC shop. Other desks serve Ireland from Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria or Liechtenstein. Some well-known names, including Binance, were not in the register at all, and Binance suspended new EU activity from 1 July 2026 according to CoinDesk, so an "OTC desk" connected to such a firm is not something we would use for Irish business.

No verified physical OTC office in Ireland

This deserves its own heading because it is where search results mislead. We could not find a verifiable walk-in crypto OTC office or crypto shop in Ireland that is an authorised service provider. Some ATM operators are described by third parties as offering in-person services, but their websites were offline or repurposed when we checked, as we explain in the Bitcoin ATM hub. One-time Irish brands that appear in older articles are, on our checks, either defunct or redirected elsewhere. If someone offers to meet you at an office, a hotel or a car park to take cash for coins, assume it is not an authorised OTC desk. Our page on buying Bitcoin with cash discusses the legitimate options.

Questions to ask a desk before you trade

Do your diligence at the start. These questions reveal most problems:

1. Which legal entity will I contract with?

   Get the full company name and registration number and check it against the ESMA register and the regulator's own list.

2. What is the all-in price?

   Ask for the quote in euro including every fee and the spread, and how long the quote is held.

3. How and when do I settle?

   Bank transfer to a named business account, or settlement inside an account? Which currency? What happens if a payment is late?

4. What checks will you run on me?

   Expect identity, address, source-of-funds and sometimes source-of-wealth questions. A desk that asks for none is a warning, not a bonus.

5. Where is the crypto held, and who protects it?

   Ask about custody and about what happens if the firm fails. Crypto-asset services are not covered by the deposit guarantee, according to the Central Bank.

6. Who do I complain to?

   An authorised firm must have a complaints procedure. Ask for it in writing.

Scams that use the OTC label

"OTC" sounds institutional, which is exactly why fraudsters borrow it. The recurring patterns are straightforward to recognise once you know them.

One is the below-market offer: a stranger or a "broker" on social media offers coins at a discount if you pay quickly, often from a personal account. The discount is the bait. Another is the fake desk, with a polished site, a stock-photo team and a Telegram contact, but no verifiable legal entity or authorisation; it accepts your transfer and disappears. A third is the advance-fee version, where you are asked to pay a "verification", "insurance" or "liquidity" fee before you can trade. A fourth is the impersonator, who copies a real firm's branding and sends you instructions to pay a different bank account; always take the account details from the firm's own website or an agreed contact, never from an email alone. Finally, treat any promise of guaranteed profit, returns or "arbitrage" as a red flag; OTC desks quote prices, they do not promise outcomes.

The Central Bank's consumer hub warns that scammers clone legitimate firms, so checking an entity's name and number is not paranoia. Our crypto scams guide goes through the patterns in more depth.

How OTC differs from P2P and exchange block trades

It helps to place OTC beside its neighbours. In peer-to-peer trading you deal with another individual, often through a marketplace or software, and the protection is the platform's escrow design, not a regulator; see P2P Bitcoin in Ireland. An exchange block trade, by contrast, is a large order handled by the exchange, sometimes matched with an institutional counterparty, in the same account and under the same terms as your normal trading. An OTC desk is a dealer quoting you a price in a separate negotiated process, often with its own minimums and onboarding. In practice the line blurs, since Kraken's OTC spot service is run by the same Irish-authorised entity as its exchange, but the key idea stands: with OTC you are trading against a firm, with a quote, after full checks.

Tax and records on large trades

Large trades magnify the tax consequences. A sale for euro, a swap into another asset, or spending is most likely a capital gains tax disposal under Revenue's manual, at 33% above the annual €1,270 exemption, and you pay by 15 December or 31 January with a return due on 31 October of the following year. Keep the desk's trade confirmation, the quote and the settlement record. Budget 2027 is on 6 October 2026, so re-check the rates once it lands. Our crypto tax guide covers the rules.