TL;DR:
- BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, recorded a $1.29 billion dark pool sale, the largest transaction of this kind ever registered.
- The operation coincided with a 2.8% drop in Bitcoin’s price, which reached a low of $75,600.
- Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. have accumulated eight consecutive days of net outflows, registering more than $2.26 billion in withdrawals over two weeks.
An unidentified investor executed a block sale of 29.2 million shares of the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) through a dark pool, a private trading platform that financial institutions use to carry out large-volume operations without exposing their movements to the public market.
The total amount of the transaction came to approximately $1.29 billion, making it the largest individual transaction of this kind ever recorded on that type of platform.
massive $1.289 billion IBIT block sale by unknown party through dark pool at 10:30am today, biggest such trade i've ever seen pic.twitter.com/9qGDqkfCbu
— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) May 26, 2026
IBIT Shakes the Bitcoin Market
Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, flagged the transaction and described it as the largest he had ever seen executed through a dark pool. Eric Balchunas, ETF analyst at Bloomberg, noted that the sale was more than 22 times larger than the second biggest IBIT sell order recorded that same day.
The impact on Bitcoin’s price was immediate. According to TradingView data, BTC dropped 1.5% in just ten minutes after the order was executed, falling from $77,875 to $76,720. Twelve hours later, the price extended its decline to a daily low of $75,600, accumulating a loss of 2.8% on the day.
ETF Outflows Surpass $2.26 Billion
There is a sustained weakening of institutional appetite for spot Bitcoin ETFs in the United States. The funds recorded their eighth consecutive day of net outflows on Tuesday, surpassing $333.6 million withdrawn in that single session, of which $192.4 million corresponded to IBIT. Since May 14, the last date with positive net flows, the group of funds has accumulated more than $2.26 billion in redemptions.
Jane Street reduced its exposure to Bitcoin ETFs by approximately 70% during the first quarter of the year, while Goldman Sachs cut its position by 10%. Bitcoin, which historically traded independently from traditional markets, has increased its correlation with them in recent months, partly as a direct consequence of the entry of regulated products such as ETFs into the institutional ecosystem.
