How to Buy and Sell Large Amounts of

Bitcoin and Other Cryptocurrencies

If you’ve managed to obtain a large amount of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in the past
decade, you may be looking at a small fortune’s worth of digital currency.

But now that some luxury spending or a vast sum in savings is within your reach, there's one
question: what's the best way to sell large amounts of Bitcoin? On the other hand, you may be
interested in making a substantial investment in cryptocurrencies — but you don't know where
to buy large quantities of Bitcoin in practice.

Don't worry — we'll answer both of these questions in-depth right here. And although Bitcoin will
be the most popular cryptocurrency on the market in 2022, bear in mind that our guide below is
applicable to all other cryptocurrencies or digital assets as well.

What is a large amount of Bitcoin?

In the crypto industry, significant transactions are usually called "whale movements." They
typically happen a couple of times a year. And to put things in perspective — a transaction
would have to be worth over 50,000 BTC to be considered a "whale movement."

If we disregard the enormous amounts of coins that malicious actors transferred in one of the
previous major crypto hacks, the most significant crypto transaction ever was conducted in late
2011. In November of that year, someone sent around 500,000 BTC to a single address at
once. Back then, that amount was worth around $1.4 million — today, it would be in the billions
of dollars.

Another significant transaction via crypto happened in November 2013, when someone
transferred almost 200,000 BTC to a single address — meaning over $1.5 billion in today's
money.

Considering this, you're probably wondering — just who is trading such stunningly large
amounts of crypto? Well, seeing as the transactions themselves are called "whale movements,"
you've probably guessed that the big traders themselves are dubbed whales. Today, around
100 Bitcoin addresses hold over 15% of all currently circulated coins. Five of those have over
$500,000 BTC.

Usually, these are crypto funds, miners, or some of the earliest adopters of Bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies, that have managed to amass a fortune with little to no investment. Recent
reports also highlight institutional investors as the most prominent crypto buyers.

Of course, it's improbable that you'll be trading anything near the amounts we've mentioned
above as an individual. An average Bitcoin transaction will deal with far smaller amounts —
around 0.015 BTC.
Determining how much to trade
When determining how much Bitcoin to buy or sell, there are a couple of things to consider. First
of all, the average value of a BTC transaction that we've mentioned above is so low for a reason
— in 2022, a single BTC is worth around $40,000. That means Bitcoin transactions are high-
value, and it's important to approach them with a clear head.

If you're looking to invest in cryptocurrency for the first time, the amounts you'll buy depend on a
few different factors. For one, your net worth — regardless of what cryptocurrency you're
investing in, it's not wise to go above 2-5% of your total net worth, depending on your risk
appetite. And if you've already got an investment portfolio you want to diversify, putting more
than 1% in Bitcoin would mean increasing risk substantially.

It's generally not wise to put a considerable amount of capital into crypto at once — largely due
to its current volatility. Instead, develop a long-term trading plan that reduces risk. This is
particularly true if you're a newbie trader — someone without a lot of intricate knowledge about
the crypto market and someone with a low risk tolerance. Only invest what you're prepared to
lose.

How to purchase or sell large amounts of Bitcoin or other

cryptocurrencies
Now that you know all about the theory, let's look at how you can sell or buy large quantities of
Bitcoin or another crypto in practice. Generally, you've got three options — the first two being
the most common:

Use an exchange
These days, you can find a ton of crypto exchanges online. Their advantages are clear: they
offer secure, reliable, and quick transactions. Some of them also let you trade in fiat if you link
your bank account — which means you can withdraw money from a crypto sale immediately.

However, there are some downsides as well — namely, the withdrawal limits. To increase
these, you'll need to provide substantial personal information, which removes most of the
anonymity from the transaction. Also, price slippage can happen with exchange trading —
where you place a trade order at one price point, only for the trade itself to be executed at
another. Generally, it's advisable to trade on exchanges only for amounts lower than $25,000.

OTC Desk
If you're going to trade more significant amounts of bitcoin, an OTC desk could be better. Over-
the-counter brokers are usually involved in bigger, multi-million-dollar transactions — where all
parties want to stay low-key. In the past, finding an OTC desk wasn't straightforward because
they weren't routinely listed in the yellow pages. However, these days, plenty of crypto
exchanges have their own separate OTC platforms for higher-volume trades.
In these transactions, an OTC broker connects you with a party that wants to buy or sell crypto,
depending on what kind of transaction you're offering. Both parties stay anonymous and transfer
the amounts between each other, with the broker acting as an intermediary.

Peer to Peer
Finally, we’ve got the third option — direct trades between parties, where one side wants to buy
the exact amount of crypto that the other one is selling. In this case, you can still retain your
anonymity with the right P2P crypto exchange or contacts — but bear in mind that this option
brings the highest risk of running into crypto scammers because of no intermediaries or
oversight.

Things to be aware of when trading large amounts

Privacy is an important concern when you want to buy or sell huge amounts of crypto — for a
couple of reasons.

Obviously, people that have a large amount of money in the form of any asset want to keep a
low profile, mostly to avoid any malicious actors. However, when it comes to the volatile crypto
market, there are some other privacy concerns as well.

When you buy or sell a substantial amount of any cryptocurrency on a public exchange, bear in
mind that this will probably affect its price — and thus your gains from the transaction.

Where to buy and sell large amounts of Bitcoin

If you’re looking for an exchange that also maintains an OTC desk, NDAX is a great choice. The
NDAX Wealth platform allows for high-volume trades in Bitcoin with all the benefits of an OTC
transaction — and you can trade in plenty of other cryptocurrencies as well.