A single, anonymous holder unloaded roughly $1.3 billion worth of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) in a single dark‑pool block trade Tuesday morning — a transaction ETF analysts called both massive and unusual, not least because it barely budged the market.
Galaxy Research lead Alex Thorn first flagged the print on X, describing it as a “massive $1.289 billion IBIT block sale by an unknown party through dark pool at 10:30am today,” and adding it was “the biggest such trade I’ve ever seen.” Bloomberg ETF analysts later verified the trade: Eric Balchunas reported a confirmed 29 million‑share execution (about $1.3 billion) at 10:30 a.m., noting that IBIT’s price was essentially unchanged and the market “absorbed it well.” James Seyffart also confirmed the print on his terminal, putting the size at roughly 29.2 million shares.
The trade was routed through a dark pool — an off‑exchange venue where large institutional orders can execute without appearing on public order books — which likely helped limit visible market impact. Still, the sheer scale made it stand out amid recent outflow pressure across US spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Recent flows have swung into the red. SoSoValue shows US spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced $1.257 billion of net outflows in the May 18–22 week, with IBIT accounting for about $1.008 billion of that total. Fidelity’s FBTC logged $112 million of weekly outflows. That left total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets at $98.87 billion and cumulative net inflows since inception at $57.08 billion.
The May 18–22 weakness followed another tough week (May 11–15), when US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $1.039 billion of net outflows, snapping a six‑week streak of inflows. That prior week saw ARKB lead withdrawals ($324 million) and IBIT lose $317 million, leaving aggregate net assets around $104.29 billion at the time. Daily SoSoValue figures also show a run of outflow days: $70.47 million on May 20, $101 million on May 21 and $105 million on May 22 — marking a six‑day streak of net outflows.
Putting the block sale in context, Michael Nadeau of The DeFi Report noted the trade comes “on the heels of $2.5b of outflows over the last few weeks,” adding that “the ETFs have held up remarkably well,” a point some see as evidence the market may be finding a floor. He sounded a more cautious note as well: “But it looks like institutions are starting to get skittish about what they’re holding in an environment where inflation and rates are rising.”
At press time BTC was trading near $75,730.
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