OTCXN say has launched its OTC Block Trading venue for crypto trading – what it says will be the first of several trading venues that will be launched for institutional-only digital asset trading.

After a period of successful testing, the venue is now open to all clients with accounts at custodians on the OTCXN network, including Kingdom Trust and Prime Trust, both of whom are regulated US entities that offer custody services for fiat and cryptocurrencies. Trading on the venue includes fiat-for-crypto, crypto-for-crypto and fiat-for-fiat, the firm says.

“We are extremely pleased to announce that our institutional clients are now trading with each other on our OTC Block Trading venue,” says Rosario Ingargiola, CEO and founder of OTCXN. “Clients can now trade without risk to their counterparty and without waiting for settlement payments to hit their account or wallet. The immediate re-tradability of crypto assets with no public ledger transactions means more trading opportunities for our clients.”

In the OTCXN solution the cryptocurrency is always held in deep, cold storage, and neither side of the trade ever sends funds or crypto first. An immutable record of all transactions on a proprietary blockchain layer brings transparency and provability to facilitate the audit, fund administration and regulatory requirements of institutional clients.

Later this year, OTCXN says it will be launching its matching engine, LiquiMatch, as both a dark pool and lit central limit order book-style exchange for cryptocurrencies. It says clients will be able to access liquidity across all OTCXN trading venues via a single account at a custodian. It adds it also plans to launch a marketplace for coin lending and leverage financing in early 2019.