A dark pool that places a minimum size (block size) for each order. It is designed to ensure that trades occur in large sizes and to match orders among institutional investors (and very large investors) with a minimum of market price impact.

The minimum order size ranges from 5,000 to 50,000+ shares (rather than lot shares of 100). This venue of dark liquidity helps avoid the need to trade large quantities in the open market. It uses blotter scraping technology to process orders.

Examples of block-oriented dark pools include Liquidnet, Pulse, and AQUA.