Bitcoin Holds Above $75K After $1.3B BlackRock ETF Sale

A roughly $1.3 billion block trade in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust occurred Tuesday, testing liquidity in the largest U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. At the time of the transaction, Bitcoin was trading above $75,600 after a roughly 2% decline over the prior 24 hours, and IBIT’s share price showed little movement.

ETF analyst Eric Balchunas confirmed the transaction in a social media post and wrote that the market ‘absorbed it well.’ The limited change in IBIT’s price indicated that buyers were available to take large orders.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded about $1.79 billion of net outflows over the seven trading days leading up to Tuesday. Market participants noted the block trade appeared to be executed through over-the-counter channels; authorized participants and OTC desks are commonly used to handle large ETF transactions off-exchange.

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler described the trade as ‘large-scale institutional de-risking’ in a social post. Separate reports this week said U.S. forces struck sites in southern Iran and that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps downed a U.S. drone.

Other sizable on-chain and OTC moves took place near the same time. A long-dormant miner moved 2,650 BTC, roughly $203 million at current prices, to major OTC desks. The largest corporate Bitcoin holder skipped its weekly purchase and repurchased $1.5 billion of outstanding notes at a discount, reducing outstanding debt to about $6.7 billion. Four smaller corporate treasuries bought a combined 602.6 BTC, about $46 million.

IBIT is one of the largest spot Bitcoin ETFs, and the fund structure routes large transactions through authorized participants and OTC desks to limit market impact. The block trade, coupled with recent outflows and large transfers by major holders, added to market activity observed by participants on Tuesday.