Whale alert: Someone dumped $1.29 billion of BlackRock's bitcoin ETF in a dark pool trade

The big sale happened amid a broader continued exodus from U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs. By Omkar Godbole|Edited by Sheldon Reback May 27, 2026, 8:40 a.m. 2 min read Make preferred on Someone sold a huge amount of IBIT on Tuesday in a single trade. (foco44/Pixabay)What to know: An unknown investor executed a single $1.29 billion block sale of BlackRock’s IBIT bitcoin ETF in a dark pool on Tuesday, in what one analyst called the largest trade of its kind he has seen.The sale came amid a broader exodus from U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs, which saw a combined $333 million in outflows Tuesday and $2.26 billion withdrawn over the past two weeks.As investors pulled millions of dollars out of U.S.-listed spot crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on Tuesday, one move stood out.

A single investor dumped over a billion dollars-worth of shares in BlackRock’s bitcoin BTC$75,724.24 ETF, which trades under the ticker IBIT, in one dark-pool trade. A dark-pool trade is a privately negotiated transaction, allowing the largest market participants to buy and sell large amounts of stock without tipping off the public or instantly crushing the spot price.

The massive sale was just one on a day that saw total net outflows from the 11 spot ETFs increase to $334 million. The ETFs have suffered net outflows for seven straight days, the second-longest run since their inception in January 2024, losing $1.88 billon. The longest consecutive outflow streak is eight trading days, occurring twice — in late August-early September 2024, totalling $1.2 billion and again in February 2025, totalling $3.3 billion.