A private platform (private exchanges) for trading securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments. Securities traded on dark pools are not available to the investing public. In other words, dark pools provide liquidity (dark pool liquidity) only to specific types of investors (mainly known as institutional investors). Trades or orders executed through dark pools are by nature hidden from the public until execution.

Dark pools are typically legal and regulated (by securities commissions), though such market organs may give an elite of institutional traders (who execute most of dark-pool trades) unfair informational advantage that can be exploited in illegal types of trade (e.g., front running).

These pools are also known as dark pools of liquidity or black pools.