BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust shed $527.84 million on Wednesday, the second-biggest one-day net outflow since the fund launched in January 2024, according to SoSoValue data.
The figure missed the record by a razor-thin margin. IBIT’s biggest ever outflow remains the $528.3 million drawn on Jan. 30, which Wednesday’s drawing came within about $500,000 of matching. The fund holds about $59 billion in assets and accounts for close to 4% of bitcoin’s total supply, making it the single largest entity for institutional bitcoin exposure.
The outflow was part of a wider exodus. The 11 US-listed spot bitcoin ETFs lost a combined $733.43 million on Wednesday, with Fidelity’s FBTC losing $60.30 million and Grayscale’s GBTC losing $104.76 million along with the IBIT draw. The complex has now posted outflows for multiple consecutive sessions, with more than $2 billion withdrawn over the past two weeks.
The selloff landed the same day bitcoin broke below $73,000. The cryptocurrency was trading at $72,978 in Asian hours on Thursday, down 3.4% over 24 hours, after US airstrikes on an Iranian military site near the Strait of Hormuz reignited a conflict that markets had begun to price in. The ETF outflows and price decline fed each other, with redemptions forcing BlackRock and other issuers to sell the underlying bitcoin to settle investor exits.
The IBIT draw came the day after a separate eye-catching move in the fund. On Tuesday, a single investor sold $1.29 billion of IBIT shares in a dark-pool block trade, CoinDesk reported.
A dark-pool trade is a privately negotiated transaction that lets big players move size without tipping the broader market.
That block sale was not the same as a net outflow, as buyers can step in to absorb volume, and IBIT’s actual net redemptions on Tuesday came in at $192.44 million. But the two events together point to institutional players trimming bitcoin exposure as the macro backdrop turned.
The flow data has been pointing this way for several weeks. ETF accumulation over the year had already thinned to a net of around 4,500 BTC, and May turned from the steady buying in March and April to distribution, as reported on Wednesday. Bitcoin has fallen from above $82,000 on May 6 to below $73,000 now, and the ETF channel that drove the 2025 rally has spent the month pulling money the other way.
Whether the outflow reflects tactical de-risking amid Hormuz headlines or a deeper institutional retreat depends on what happens as the situation in the Middle East stabilizes. IBIT has been through longer expiration streaks before in this cycle without a permanent reversal, with money returning each time the macro picture cleared.
