Is BlackRock manipulating the Bitcoin price again?

If you’re a Bitcoin Whale, it is always better if you can buy the largest digital currency cheaply. Hence, if you own a significant amount, you could theoretically influence the price and cause a sudden drop. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is once again being accused of manipulating the Bitcoin price in this way. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $73,200.

Coinbase

BlackRock began purchasing Bitcoins in large quantities for its own IBIT fund in January 2024. As early as September of that year, the first rumors of market manipulation surfaced.

The conspiracy theory that went viral at the time was: BlackRock waits until Bitcoin reaches $70,000, then takes a massive short until the price drops to $50,000, after which it starts buying again. Coinbase, which collaborates on BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETFs, participates, and both manipulate the market in this way.

massive $1.289 billion IBIT block sale by unknown party through dark pool at 10:30am today, biggest such trade i’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/9qGDqkfCbu

— Alex Thorn (@intangiblecoins) May 26, 2026

This time it is slightly different, but still the same movement. A well-known crypto analyst reported that an unknown player sold about $1.29 billion worth of IBIT shares via a ‘dark pool’, resulting in a massive outflow of Bitcoins. The price of Bitcoin suddenly dropped from $77k to $75k, only to gradually climb back up.  In the past 24 hours through, the price of Bitcoin has been steadily declining again.

Market manipulation or not, you be the judge.