Perfectly legal: Bitcoin over the counter, under the radar

A private-to-private BTC OTC transaction constitutes the private sale and purchase of a substantial amount of Bitcoin by avoiding a digital asset exchange and other regulated service providers. Typically, the deal can be designed and accomplished in a way that preserves full privacy. On the other hand, the participants do not have the regulatory protection as provided by exchanges and so-called OTC desks.

Private sales are in most cases perfectly legal. However, they might be linked with tax evasion, money laundring and other unethical behavior. In addition, the local regulatory requirement might result in limitations and obligations which should be taken into consideration before the deal is accomplished.

ItBit, Genesis, Cumberland Mining, FalconX, Satstreet, and Athena Investor Services can't do the trick. All the institutional OTC desks and OTC brokers do not have the regulatory flexibility to provide the level of privacy that some private investors require for their crypto dealings. The true OTC transaction is done decentralized with only a small number of participants at the counter. 

In the acquisition of any asset, the buyer has the need to comprehensively  define the asset specifications, the delivery process, warranties and representations, and other contractual aspects of the deal. Meanwhile, the seller is interested in keeping the contract slim and the list of contractual obligations short. Therefore, under normal market conditions, when the BTC are not sold under an auction scenario, the buyer's side is drafting the SPA.  

A P2P BTC OTC transaction has to be carefully prepared to avoid a total loss, potential criminal implications, and other disappointments. There are certain obvious and some hidden mechanics of buying cryptocurrency in a private sales environment.