A roughly $1.3 billion block trade in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) tested liquidity in the largest spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) as Bitcoin products faced a fresh stretch of outflows.
Bloomberg’s ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas, confirmed the transaction, adding that the market “absorbed it well” as IBIT’s price remained largely unchanged, he wrote in a Tuesday X post.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price fell 2% during the past 24 hours, but managed to remain above the $75,600 level at the time of writing, despite the significant block sale from the mysterious ETF holder, data from TradingView shows.
The price action shows that there is sufficient Bitcoin liquidity and buyer demand to absorb large institutional sales worth over a billion.
However, the block sale may add to the mounting ETF outflows, as the US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $1.79 billion worth of net negative outflows in the seven trading days leading up to Tuesday, Farside Investors data shows.
Source: Eric Balchunas
Block sale may signal institutional de-risking
While the exact reason behind the massive block sale is unknown, CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler saw it as a signal of “large-scale institutional de-risking,” according to a Tuesday X post.
The sales follow renewed geopolitical concerns surrounding the conflict in the Middle East, after the US said it launched new strikes on southern Iran on Monday, targeting Iranian missile sites and boats attempting to place mines, reported news outlet BBC.
In retaliation, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it downed a US drone that entered its airspace on Tuesday.
Related: Strategy buys back $1.5B of debt at discount, cuts outstanding notes to $6.7B
Other large entities have also shown signs of de-risking.
On Monday, a Satoshi-era Bitcoin miner transferred 2,650 Bitcoin worth about $203 million to FalconX and Cumberland over-the-counter (OTC) trading desks, in an onchain move that may signal a planned sale or liquidity transaction from the long-dormant whale, Cointelegraph reported.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, also skipped its weekly Bitcoin acquisition, but bought back $1.5 billion worth of outstanding notes at a discount, reducing its outstanding debt via notes to $6.7 billion, Cointelegraph reported on Tuesday.
Still, four smaller treasury companies stepped in and bought a cumulative 602.6 BTC worth about $46 million, signaling more sustained demand for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.
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