How the desk prices
VALR and Luno order books, the ZAR premium, the margin ladder and a worked example.
Block trades
Above the size where
Above the size where
the book stops helping.
A large trade is not a bigger version of a small one. This page describes the South African market specifically, because the ZAR book is the one the desk knows best: it is shallow, so above a certain size your own order becomes the price. The same mechanics apply wherever a local book is thin. Here is what that costs, how a block ticket is handled instead, and what the desk and your bank will both need from you at size.
Conexus
Indicative BTC rate
—
BTC / ZAR
Quoted by a trader
The cost of depth
Slippage, with the arithmetic shown.
Slippage is a vague word until you look at an order book. Here is the mechanism, with round illustrative numbers.
An order book is a ladder. On the bid side sit buyers, each willing to take a certain quantity at a certain price, best price first. When you sell into that book with a market order, you consume the best bid, then the next one down, then the next, until your quantity is filled. Your fill is the volume-weighted average of every rung you ate — not the price you saw on the screen when you pressed the button.
Suppose a local Bitcoin book looks like this, with numbers rounded for readability. These are illustrative figures, not live market data:
| Rung on the bid side | Price | Size available |
|---|---|---|
| Best bid | R2,000,000 | R250,000 |
| Second | R1,994,000 | R400,000 |
| Third | R1,986,000 | R600,000 |
| Fourth | R1,975,000 | R750,000 |
Sell R250,000 worth and you are done at the screen price. Sell R2,000,000 worth and you eat all four rungs. Your average fill lands near R1,985,000 — about 0.75% below the price on the screen when you started, which is roughly R15,000 of value you never see and never get an invoice for. It is not a fee. It is simply the difference between the price of a small trade and the price of yours.
Three further things make it worse than the table suggests:
- Displayed depth is not committed depth. Part of the book is placed by market makers who cancel and re-post as soon as a large order starts eating through. The rungs you were counting on can move away while you are filling.
- You are visible. A large resting order is information. Other participants can see the pressure and price accordingly, which is precisely why institutional flow does not go through public books.
- The fiat leg has its own limits. Even a perfect fill leaves you with the exchange's withdrawal ceilings, daily limits and review holds between you and money in your account.
Working the order slowly over hours or days fixes some of this and introduces a different problem: you are now holding market risk for the whole period, on an asset that can move several percent in an afternoon. Splitting the trade does not remove the cost. It converts a known cost into an unknown one.
Properties of the market
Four numbers that are not ours.
None of these are claims about this desk. They are features of a thin local book and of the rules that sit around it.
R0 million
roughly where a ZAR ticket starts moving the local price against itself
no official line, and it arrives earlier in assets thinner than Bitcoin
0%
below the screen price where the illustrative R2,000,000 sell order finishes
rounded example from the book below, not live market data
R0
lost to depth in that example, with no fee line and no invoice attached
the difference between the price of a small trade and the price of yours
None
minimum threshold below which the Travel Rule stops applying
FIC Directive 9 of 2024, in force since 30 April 2025
The alternative
Why one agreed rate beats an average fill.
A block quote replaces that whole process with a single number. The desk takes the other side of your trade as principal at an agreed rate, then manages the resulting position on its own account, across venues and counterparties and over whatever time frame it judges appropriate. Three consequences follow, and they are the reason the model exists.
Certainty. You know the exact figure before you commit. On a large ticket that matters more than shaving a few basis points, because you are usually trading against a real-world obligation — a deposit, a transfer duty, a supplier, a closing date — where "approximately" is not a usable number.
The risk moves. Between your acceptance and the desk unwinding its position, the market can move against the desk. That is the desk's problem, and the margin is the price of it. If the market moves in the desk's favour, that is also the desk's outcome. Your rate does not change either way.
No information leakage into the book. Your trade does not appear as a wall of size on a public venue before it is executed, so it does not move the price it is trying to hit.
None of this makes the desk cheaper in every case. Below the point where depth starts to bite, an exchange is genuinely the better answer, and a trader will say so. Compare the models rather than the headline numbers — the OTC exchange page sets out how the price itself is built, and the fees and limits page publishes where the margin bands step down as the ticket grows.
Handling
How a block ticket actually runs.
The sequence differs from a standard trade in three places: the pre-trade conversation is longer, the quote is constructed rather than pulled from a screen, and settlement is planned before it starts.
Conexus
Indicative BTC rate
—
BTC / ZAR
One rate, whole ticket
01
Pre-trade conversation
Before any number is discussed, a trader establishes the size, the asset, the deadline and where the value has to end up. If the answer is that an exchange serves you better, you will be told so at this stage rather than after.
02
Constructed quote
The trader prices from the depth that would have to be worked to fill the whole ticket across available venues and counterparties, plus the margin band for that size. The quote is one rate for the full amount, not an average to be revealed later.
03
A held window
The firm rate is confirmed in writing and valid for an agreed period, stated up front. The window is short because the desk carries market risk while it runs. If it lapses, you ask for a fresh quote at no cost.
04
Tranches where they help
Large settlements are frequently split for operational reasons — bank ceilings on a single instruction, wallet limits, or a deadline that arrives in stages. Every tranche settles on the agreed terms and every leg is separately confirmed in writing.
05
Verified instructions
Bank details and wallet addresses are confirmed through a channel you have checked independently, and a test transfer precedes the first large leg. Impersonation of a desk at the payment-instruction moment is the most expensive fraud in this market.
06
Documented close
You receive a written confirmation per leg: reference, asset and quantity, rate applied, gross and net amount, date. That pack is what you give your bank, your accountant and, in due course, your tax practitioner.
Due diligence
The bigger the ticket, the more the desk has to know.
This is not discretionary and it is not a judgement about you.
Crypto asset service providers are accountable institutions under Item 22 of Schedule 1 to the FIC Act, in force since 19 December 2022. Section 21 requires customer due diligence on every client. Section 21A requires enhanced due diligence where the risk is higher, and transaction size is one of the standard risk factors. Records are kept for five years under sections 22 and 23.
What that means in documents, at size:
- Source of funds — where this specific money came from. Exchange withdrawal history, a sale agreement, a dividend resolution, a loan agreement, a settlement statement.
- Source of wealth — how the overall wealth was accumulated, which is a different question and the one people under-prepare for. Employment or business history, tax returns, audited financials, a mining or early-holding record.
- On-chain provenance — the desk screens incoming addresses. Funds with exposure to sanctioned entities, mixers or known theft are declined, and once they are in the desk's hands a decline is not the end of the desk's obligations.
- Screening — sanctions lists, and domestic or foreign prominent influential persons, which triggers senior approval rather than refusal.
- For entities — company registration documents, the ownership structure up to the beneficial owners, and authority for the person giving the instruction.
Two directives sit alongside this. FIC Directive 9 of 2024 implements the FATF Travel Rule and has been in force since 30 April 2025 with no minimum threshold, so originator and beneficiary information accompanies transfers regardless of size. And South Africa adopted the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework from 1 March 2026, with the first return due to SARS by 31 May 2027. Anyone offering you a way around either is offering you a criminal problem, not a service. The full picture is on the AML and KYC page.
Your bank
Why large inbound EFTs get reviewed.
A seven-figure credit landing in a personal account from a counterparty the bank has not seen before will often be queried. This surprises people, so it is worth being precise about what is and is not happening.
Banks are themselves accountable institutions under the FIC Act, with their own customer due diligence, monitoring and reporting duties. Their systems flag activity that is unusual for that account — which a large one-off inbound credit usually is. The review is about the bank's own obligations, not about a suspicion directed at you.
Practical measures, in order of how much time they save:
- Tell your bank before the money arrives. A short message to your relationship manager describing the source and the expected amount converts a hold into a note on file.
- Keep the trade confirmation to hand. The written confirmation, plus your onboarding pack, answers almost every question a bank will ask in one attachment.
- Use the account you told the desk about. Settlement goes only into an account in the verified client's own name. Redirecting a settlement mid-trade is the single strongest fraud signal there is, and the desk will stop and re-verify if it is asked to.
- Do not split the payment to keep it small. Structuring transactions to avoid reporting or monitoring is an offence, and it is far more likely to generate a section 29 report than the original transfer ever was.
One recurring myth deserves burial: the cash threshold report under section 28 of the FIC Act, triggered above R49,999.99, applies to cash. It is not a general "anything over R50,000 gets reported" rule for electronic transfers. What has no threshold is the section 29 suspicious and unusual transaction report, which must be filed within 15 days excluding weekends and public holidays where the grounds exist.
Questions at size
There is no official line. As a working rule, a ticket becomes a block when filling it on a single local venue would move the price against you by more than the desk's margin — in South African ZAR books that is often somewhere around the R1 million mark, and earlier for thinner assets than Bitcoin. A trader will tell you honestly if your amount is small enough that an exchange is the cheaper answer.
Because the desk is not obliged to fill your entire amount in one venue at one moment. It can work the position across venues, counterparties and time, and it prices your quote from what that costs on average, not from the worst level in the book. You get certainty; the desk gets the residual risk and the margin for carrying it.
No, and no honest desk does. You are quoted a principal price, not a brokerage. What you receive is a firm rate before execution and a written confirmation afterwards stating the rate, the gross and net amounts and the reference. If you want an agency model where every fill is disclosed, that is a different service from a different kind of firm.
Section 21A of the FIC Act requires enhanced due diligence where the risk is higher, and size is one of the risk factors. In practice that means source of funds and source of wealth evidence proportionate to the amount, screening against sanctions lists and prominent-influential-person status, and a record kept for five years under sections 22 and 23.
Yes, where there is an operational reason — bank ceilings, wallet limits, a phased deadline. Each tranche settles at the agreed terms and every leg is documented. What the desk will not do is structure a trade to sit under a reporting threshold. That is a criminal offence for both sides, and it is the fastest way to turn an ordinary transaction into a suspicious one.
Entirely. Banks are accountable institutions with their own monitoring duties, and a large credit from a new counterparty is exactly the kind of thing they review. Give them the written trade confirmation and the onboarding pack. Telling your relationship manager in advance turns a two-day review into a five-minute call.
The desk files what the law requires and nothing beyond it. Cash threshold reports under section 28 apply to cash above R49,999.99, so they do not arise on bank-settled trades. Suspicious and unusual transaction reports under section 29 have no threshold and must be filed within 15 days excluding weekends and public holidays. Separately, South Africa adopted the OECD Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework from 1 March 2026, with the first return due to SARS by 31 May 2027.
Sometimes, but plan for it not to happen. Enhanced due diligence on a large first ticket takes as long as it takes to obtain the documents, and the desk cannot conclude a transaction before it is complete. Clients who onboard in advance can accept a quote in minutes. The document list is published on the onboarding page.
Read next
Settlement mechanics
Both legs, in order, with the rails, cut-offs and confirmations that go with them.
Avoiding crypto scams
How impersonation of a desk works at the payment-instruction moment, and how to defeat it.
Price the whole ticket at once.
Tell a trader the asset, the direction, the size and the deadline. You get a firm written rate for the full amount, a settlement plan, and an honest answer if an exchange would serve you better.
Investing in crypto assets may result in the loss of capital, as the value is variable and
can go up as well as down. Illustrative order-book figures on this page are rounded
examples chosen to show the arithmetic and are not live market data. A crypto asset is not
legal tender and does not fall within the National Payment System Act. Conexus Crypto
provides an exchange service only and does not provide financial, investment or tax advice.