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A major shift in initiative has been recorded on the crypto market, breaking the negative trend of recent days. Until this morning, retail investors in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF had been actively dumping their shares, dragging the cryptocurrency's price lower.
However, official news about sales by Strategy triggered a strong market reaction, during which the fund sharply changed tactics and moved back into buying.
The summer decline in prices led to IBIT posting more than $772 million in net outflows by early July, as per SoSoValue, while the structure's total net assets fell to $44 billion. Against this backdrop, Bitcoin plunged from its spring highs to a local bottom near $59,000, leaving BlackRock in control of just over 3.5% of the cryptocurrency's total global supply.
Institutional tug-of-war for BTC
The trigger for today's U-turn by BlackRock, or more precisely by its clients, seems to be Strategy's official report, as Michael Saylor's company announced that last week it had sold almost $216 million worth of Bitcoin to pay dividends on its securities.
On this morning's news, the price on exchanges immediately moved lower and broke through the local support level at $62,641.
But it was precisely at this point that retail panic was met by institutional demand. BlackRock's desk began absorbing the sudden sell-off volume through Coinbase Prime.
The fund bought the dip through a series of targeted transactions of exactly 300 Bitcoin each and closed the deal with a large final block of another 1,000 coins, spending more than $80 million in total, as visible on Arkham's graph.
Along the way, the fund also picked up another 7,500 Ethereum for its second fund, ETHA.
This aggressive purchase coincided with the actions of other major whales, which over the past few days collectively scooped up more than 270,000 BTC from the lows. As a result, prices on Bitfinex quickly returned to $63,739, while the relative strength index, or RSI, jumped to 65 points, confirming the return of buyers.
The multi-day selling inside the ETF ended with a classic maneuver: the morning emotional sell-off created a discount that BlackRock quickly used for an instant and profitable re-entry into the asset.
Dan Burgin
U.Today Editorial Team
