A $1.3 billion block of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ: $IBIT) changed hands in a dark pool Tuesday morning, putting fresh pressure on a Bitcoin market already working through another stretch of ETF outflows.
The off-exchange trade covered nearly 29 million IBIT shares and was executed at 10:30 a.m. ET. The size stood out across the day’s activity and ranks among the largest private-market Bitcoin ETF transactions since U.S. spot products began trading last year.
Dark pool trades are designed to keep large orders away from public order books, reducing the immediate shock that can come when a major seller exits through open markets. In this case, Bitcoin avoided a deeper break, but the tape still showed stress around the transaction window. Decrypt reported that Bitcoin slipped nearly 1.4% on a lower timeframe, moving from about $78,000 toward $77,000 during the sell flow.
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IBIT also faced $192.4 million in net redemptions on Tuesday, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $334 million in total net outflows for the week as of Tuesday. That followed two straight weeks of heavier withdrawals, including $1 billion and $1.26 billion in redemptions.
The larger question is whether the block sale was a one-off rebalance or a cleaner signal that institutional demand has cooled after Bitcoin’s spring rally. Shawn Young, chief analyst at MEXC Research, said the reaction looked “more like a large portfolio adjustment than a disorderly liquidation.”
That distinction matters for market structure. The trade did not create a full liquidity break, but it showed how large ETF selling can still bleed into Bitcoin (CRYPTO: $BTC) pricing even when routed away from visible order books.
For now, IBIT remains the largest public wrapper for spot Bitcoin exposure, making its flows a clean read on how much institutional conviction is still behind the trade.
BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQ: IBIT) is currently trading at $42.36 U.S. per share.