A large, unidentified holder sold roughly $1.3 billion worth of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, through a dark pool on Tuesday morning, in what ETF analysts described as an unusually large block trade. The sale stood out not only because of its size, but because the market appeared to digest it with little visible disruption.
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Handles $1.3B Block Sale
Galaxy research lead Alex Thorn first flagged the transaction on X, calling it a “massive $1.289 billion IBIT block sale by an unknown party through dark pool at 10:30am today.” Thorn said it was the “biggest such trade I’ve ever seen,” while adding that he was still checking whether it was the largest in IBIT’s history.
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas later said the trade had been confirmed. “Confirmed.. 29 million share trade ($1.3b) of IBIT executed at 1030am this morning. This screen shows all the IBIT trades today by size and you can see one of these is not like the others. Price unchanged today so mkt absorbed it well.”
James Seyffart, another Bloomberg ETF analyst, also said he had verified the print on his terminal. “It was def a massive block sale of IBIT,” he wrote. “29.2 million shares.”
Spot Bitcoin ETF Continue To Bleed
The trade comes after a sharp reversal in US spot BTC ETF flows. According to SoSoValue, US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $1.257 billion of net outflows during the May 18–22 trading week, with IBIT accounting for $1.008 billion of that total. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with $112 million of weekly outflows, while total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets stood at $98.87 billion and cumulative net inflows at $57.08 billion.
That followed another weak week. For May 11–15, SoSoValue data shows $1.039 billion of net outflows, ending six consecutive weeks of inflows. ARKB led that week’s withdrawals with $324 million, while IBIT saw $317 million of outflows; total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets were then listed at $104.29 billion.
The daily data also shows that the pressure was not confined to a single print. SoSoValue data shows US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $70.47 million of net outflows on May 20, extending the streak to four days, followed by $101 million on May 21 and $105 million on May 22, the sixth consecutive day of outflows.
Michael Nadeau of The DeFi Report framed the sale against that broader run of withdrawals. “This is on the heels of $2.5b of outflows over the last few weeks. The ETFs have held up remarkably well. Many have pointed to this as evidence that the bottom is in.”
He added a more cautious macro read: “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 traded at $75,730.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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