Zug, Switzerland – May 28, 2026. In the post-MiCAR landscape, institutional crypto markets are undergoing a structural shift. Execution and settlement are moving away from exchange-centric workflows toward bilateral OTC infrastructure, and a Zug-based OTC desk FinchTrade operates at the intersection of that change, providing PSPs, EMIs, and regional exchanges with liquidity access and regulated fiat settlement across jurisdictions.
MiCAR redirected institutional flow, it didn’t reduce it
When Europe introduced MiCAR and exchanges began winding down support for USDT, the dominant narrative was simple: regulation would push stablecoin activity toward compliant alternatives and gradually reduce Tether’s influence in Europe. At the retail level, that broadly happened. Users moved toward USDC, EURC, and other MiCA-aligned products available on regulated venues.
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Institutionally, the market evolved differently. Stablecoin demand did not decline; by Q1 2026, USDT’s market cap had grown to over $185 billion, with stablecoins accounting for roughly 75% of total crypto trading volume. What changed was the infrastructure servicing that demand. Over the last year, institutional crypto-fiat settlement has moved away from exchange rails and toward bilateral OTC relationships. The role of stablecoins in international payments didn’t change; where institutions can realistically transact did.
Why Africa, LATAM, and MENA still run on USDT
For retail users, moving from one stablecoin to another is often a product decision. For payment service providers, EMIs, regional exchanges, and treasury teams moving funds across jurisdictions, it is an operational decision. The concern is whether they can access liquidity, settle efficiently, and deliver funds into local banking systems without unnecessary delays or capital constraints.
Across parts of Africa, LATAM, MENA, and Southeast Asia, stablecoins remain deeply embedded in cross-border activity. Payment processors serving local merchants, exchanges facilitating fiat ramps, and businesses managing treasury operations continue to rely heavily on dollar-denominated stablecoin liquidity. End users are not evaluating whether a settlement happened through an exchange or an OTC counterparty. They care whether the transaction reaches the destination account quickly, predictably, and at workable economics.
OTC is becoming infrastructure, not just execution
Historically, OTC providers were viewed primarily as execution venues, useful for larger orders, negotiated pricing, and reducing market impact. That definition no longer captures what institutional clients actually buy.
The data backs this up. According to Finery Markets’ Crypto OTC Trading Report 2026, institutional spot OTC volumes grew 109% year-over-year through end-2025 against just 9% for the top-20 centralised exchanges. 75% of liquidity providers reported lower spread capture, moving the basis of competition away from pricing and toward infrastructure efficiency.
What clients actually buy: speed, capital, onboarding
If competition has moved from pricing to infrastructure, the natural question is which parts of that infrastructure clients are actually weighing. Three themes define the conversation:
Settlement speed. For firms operating active payment corridors, every hour between execution and reconciliation is trapped working capital. Where the legacy OTC standard was T+1, the operational floor has moved closer to 30 minutes. At FinchTrade, that’s the average we run across the desk.
Capital efficiency. Full pre-funding worked when crypto was a small treasury allocation. As stablecoin settlement becomes part of day-to-day business activity, the model breaks. Post-trade settlement against collateral in the 10–20% range is now the institutional default; anything that asks for 100% pre-funding has quietly stopped competing for operator flow.
Onboarding. The institutions driving growth here are not trading firms. They are operators (PSPs, EMIs, regional exchanges) and their procurement expectations are closer to fintech than to prime brokerage. Implementations are measured in days, not quarters. We onboard clients in one to five.
Taken together, these factors are building up two trends. One is forming around regulated domestic use cases and MiCAR-compliant stablecoin ecosystems. The other is forming around international settlement, liquidity access, and payment corridors that operate across multiple currencies. For the firms operating internationally, the issue is no longer access to liquidity. The harder problem is converting that liquidity into regulated fiat efficiently and repeatedly.
FinchTrade on the OTC Markets’ Current State
That transition is already visible in client behavior. Much of the growth that FinchTrade is seeing comes from PSPs, EMIs, and regional exchanges operating across corridors that sit outside the original assumptions of European crypto infrastructure.
“What these institutions need isn’t another trading venue, it’s settlement capability. We see that most clearly in regions like Africa and LATAM, where institutional demand continues to deepen,” says Nicola Boldrini, growth lead at FinchTrade.
MiCAR changed the visible surface of the market. The infrastructure underneath adapted. OTC desks are becoming the settlement layer connecting stablecoin liquidity to the institutions that still need to move value globally.
About FinchTrade
FinchTrade, founded in 2021, is a Swiss-based digital asset liquidity provider and OTC desk for institutional clients. The firm has handled billions in annual crypto-fiat exchange volume in 30+ countries, serving 100+ institutional clients with 30-minute average settlement and 1–5 day onboarding under Swiss VQF supervision.
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