Analysis: The $1.3 billion IBIT was sold in the dark pool on Tuesday, which may be the reason for the sudden drop in Bitcoin

An unknown trader sold approximately $1.3 billion worth of BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF IBIT in the dark pool market on Tuesday, attracting market attention. Data shows that the trader sold 29,200,000 shares of IBIT around 14:30 UTC at a price of $43.16. As a result, the price of Bitcoin dropped from $77,875 to $76,720 within 10 minutes, a decline of about 1.5%, and then further fell to around $75,600.

Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy Digital, stated that this was the largest IBIT dark pool trade he had ever seen. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that this trade was more than 22 times larger than the second-largest IBIT sell order of the day. Additionally, U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs have seen net outflows for eight consecutive trading days. On Tuesday alone, the net outflow was approximately $333.6 million, with IBIT accounting for about $192.4 million. Since May 14, the cumulative net outflow from Bitcoin ETFs has exceeded $2 billion. Reports indicate that Jane Street reduced its Bitcoin ETF holdings by about 70% in the first quarter of this year, while Goldman Sachs also cut its related positions by about 10%.