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A self-introduced broker emails the desk on Tuesday morning. The counterparty — a family office out of Singapore — wants to take a $25M position. Attached is a one-page PDF on what appears to be DBS Private Bank letterhead, signed by a named relationship manager, attesting to a balance “well in excess of USD 50 million” held with the bank. Reference number top-right. Wet-signature scan bottom-right. The compliance officer eyeballs the letterhead, runs the RM’s name against the bank’s public directory, finds a match, and clears the trade for settlement prep.
The PDF was an altered real letter for a balance two orders of magnitude smaller. The RM exists. The reference number was reused from a letter shopped to two other OTC desks the same week. No one called the bank.
This article is about the proof-of-funds (POF) attestation as a single-point-of-failure document in crypto OTC, prime brokerage, and private-wealth-desk crypto workflows — and the structural PDF layer that most desks have no automated coverage for today.
Why a Missed POF Is a Different Class of Loss
