About OTC And Scrow Network
Frequently-asked questions about OTC trading, the Scrow platform, and the team.
Last updated
Frequently-asked questions about OTC trading, the Scrow platform, and the team.
Last updated
Scrow is an open, non-custodial, multi-chain DeFi protocol for escrowed crypto asset trades. Scrow’s smart contracts enable OTC counterparties to deposit funds to an escrow account, releasing them safely to the required addresses only when the conditions of the trade have been met by both sides.
About OTC trading
About Scrow
Scrow Team
An over-the-counter (OTC) deal is a transaction that is organized directly between two parties, rather than using a centralized exchange. Unlike transactions that take place on conventional exchange platforms, OTC deals are negotiated directly between buyers and sellers, often facilitated by brokers or dealers, and managed by a trusted third party. OTC deals offer greater flexibility and privacy compared to transactions on exchanges, but they can also involve higher risks and limited transparency, due to reliance on an intermediary: A problem Scrow entirely solves.
OTC trades have a number of advantages over trading on traditional crypto exchanges.
Known price and amount. OTC counterparties agree on the number and value of the tokens they want to trade in advance, ensuring that each receives exactly what they expect. When using a conventional exchange, users can either place a market order, risking slippage, especially for large transactions, or a limit order, which may fail to be executed in part or in full.
Privacy. Trades take place directly between the two counterparties, avoiding the need to use public exchanges.
Flexibility. Participants negotiate the price and amount of assets to be swapped between themselves, allowing for deals that are customized to their circumstances.
Liquidity. Participants can trade large amounts of illiquid assets that they would not be able to buy or sell efficiently on conventional markets.
Cost. Fees can be lower for OTC trades than when using regular exchanges.
Scrow builds on these benefits by removing the middlemen typically used to facilitate OTC trades. This increases privacy, speed, and transparency, while potentially reducing costs.
Over-the-counter (OTC) trades have always been an important part of the crypto ecosystem, and are only gaining importance as the crypto sector grows. While OTC trades avoid a number of the issues inherent in using conventional crypto exchanges, they still require trust in a third party such as a broker or escrow partner, and in centralized infrastructure.
Scrow removes these sources of trust and the single points of failure they introduce, allowing users to swap large amounts of crypto tokens quickly, securely, and with minimal cost.
Traders can use Scrow's platform directly to escrow token swaps.
Institutions can build on Scrow, implementing their existing due diligence processes while benefiting from Scrow's decentralized escrow.
Developers can integrate the open Scrow protocol into their own applications.
At launch, 12 EVM chains are supported, including Ethereum mainnet, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, Avalanche C-Chain, Polygon, Blast, Mantle, Scroll, Fantom, and ZkSyncEra.
Scrow Network’s use of blockchain transactions removes reliance on most of the third parties typically involved in escrowed trades.
However, the blockchain space is fast-moving, and new exploits are continually being discovered. Scrow, like any other DeFi platform, cannot 100% guarantee the safety of funds escrowed using its smart contracts. By using Scrow, traders accept that there may be unknown risks, including the loss of all their tokens.
It’s more accurate to describe Scrow as multi-chain, rather than cross-chain.
While Scrow supports multiple blockchain platforms, assets are not transferred across chains. For example, if Alice wants to swap USDC on Polygon for ETH on Ethereum with Bob, Alice will receive the ETH to her Ethereum address while Bob will receive the USDC to his Polygon address.
This removes a major security and UX problem, since bridges represent a weak point in the blockchain ecosystem. Bridging funds often entails significant delays and unknown risks.
At launch, Scrow will support escrow of assets on the same chain only. Support for transfers involving two chains will follow a successful audit.
No. As an open DeFi protocol, anyone can interact with Scrow Network using only a blockchain wallet. Scrow does not collect personal information from users.
Organizations using Scrow’s escrow rails can implement whatever identity verification they need to remain compliant, before initializing a trade.
No. Moving fiat money requires the use of centralized services, which would introduce a single point of failure into the Scrow protocol. However, you can purchase stablecoins such as USDC and USDT for fiat using a conventional crypto exchange or broker, and swap these for other assets using Scrow.
Scrow’s team comprises a small group of hand-picked individuals with extensive experience in the crypto and DeFi world, from smart contract development and security to tokenomics and marketing.
No. Escrow contracts are fully under the control of the participants. User sovereignty is maintained at all times. At no point does Scrow have the ability to intervene in the escrow process.
Users can cancel their trades and return any escrowed assets at any time before final settlement.
No. Scrow provides the infrastructure to facilitate secure token swaps between third-party users. We do not provide liquidity for trades or offer escrow deals. If you receive a message that claims to be from a member of the Scrow team offering a trade, this is a scam.
Please email , or (preferably) contact us via the Scrow Discord. Please ensure you are talking to a real team member. Team members will never DM you first, and will never ask you to participate in an escrow deal or other transaction.