BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Faces $129 Million Dark Pool Sale

On Tuesday, an unknown investor sold a single block of BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) valued at $1.29 billion in a dark pool transaction. Galaxy's Research Director, Alex Thorn, stated on X that this trade, which occurred at 10:30 AM Eastern Time, was the largest of its kind that he has ever seen.

Dark pool trading is typically used for handling large volume sales and purchases, where the transaction parties negotiate privately and do not expose their intentions to the market like public market orders. Such arrangements allow institutional investors to buy and sell large quantities of stocks without immediately revealing their transactional intentions to the market, and also reduce the immediate impact on the spot price.

On the same day, the combined net outflow of the 11 US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs amounted to $334 million, with capital having been withdrawn for seven consecutive trading days, accumulating a net outflow of $1.88 billion during this period. Bitcoin's price has also retreated from its high above $82 thousand on May 6th to below $76 thousand currently.