Bitcoin’s price tumbled to nearly $75,000 earlier, marking a decline of about 2% for the day. The move was sudden, which raised more than a few eyebrows.
Analysts have started speculating about what caused the cascading red candles, and many are pointing to the involvement of BlackRock’s spot BTC ETF, IBIT.
Largest Dark Pool Block Trade on BlackRock’s IBIT ETF
Multiple analysts noted a massive $1.289 billion IBIT block sale executed by an unknown party through a dark pool at 10:30 AM yesterday.
Popular ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said that the trade involved a whopping 29 million shares, which dwarfs all other trades for the day and perhaps ever.
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. https://t.co/Otew0DWa3F pic.twitter.com/jZcoKez74K
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) May 26, 2026
Rumors are now circulating that this move could trigger the largest single-day Bitcoin ETF outflow on record. Many traders say the block trade coincided with a sudden downside move in BTC, as seen on the charts.
It also outlines the dangers of concentrated liquidity, especially now that major institutional players have furthered their involvement in the market, as well as large corporate treasuries largely denominated in BTC.
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