NYDIG suggests $1.3B IBIT sale was whale exiting directional trade

NYDIG’s Greg Cipolaro says a sale below market price and giving up millions of dollars for immediate execution indicates a large directional holder exited a trade on BlackRock’s IBIT last week.

A $1.26 billion block trade in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) made last week was likely a whale making a quick exit on a directional trade, says Greg Cipolaro, the head of research at financial services company NYDIG.

On Tuesday, an unknown trader sold 29.2 million shares of BlackRock’s IBIT on a dark pool, a private trading platform that institutions use to discreetly make large trades outside public markets, sparking speculation about who made the trade and why.

Cipolaro said in a research note on Friday that several indicators were “consistent with a large directional holder exiting a concentrated position rather than a contemporaneous basis-trade unwind.”

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