Banking giant Intesa Sanpaolo has disclosed $96 million in Bitcoin ETFs, as well as a sizeable options position tied to shares in Strategy (Michael Saylor's former MicroStrategy, a business intelligence firm that is also the owner of the largest number of cryptocurrencies in the world).
In a 13F filing covering the quarter ending December 2025, the bank lists five positions in spot Bitcoin ETFs. These include $72.6m in the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and $23.4m in the iShares Bitcoin Trust. The credit institution's total exposure to specialised crypto-related investment funds is just over $96 million.
All Intesa Sanpaolo's assets
The bank owns other digital assets besides ETFs. Intesa Sanpaolo has a significant position in Strategy, which owns 714,644 BTC on its balance sheet, valued at - roughly - $184.6 million. The bank holds derivative contracts linked to the Saylor company's operations, in the form of put options.
This option gives the bank the opportunity (but not the obligation) to sell Strategy shares at a specific price, in the future. The documentation released by the Intesa Group also shows shareholdings in cryptocurrency-related companies, including Coinbase; Robinhood; BitMine and ETHZilla. These are marginal positions, insignificant for an investor of this magnitude, with the largest, at around $4.4 million, held in Circle.
The lender additionally holds a $4.3 million stake in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF, the exchange traded fund that tracks the value of Solana and captures the premiums of staking.
Given the large number of digital assets owned, it is clear that Intesa Sanpaolo is strongly interested in the development of the cryptocurrency market and, more generally, in the future growth of decentralised finance.
Who decided on these investments?
Curiously, on the 13F form where the investments completed by Intesa Sanpaolo listed above are put in black and white, we find the acronym DFND, which means shared-defined. This indicates that all investment decisions made are due to the joint actions of the group and its affiliated asset managers. It is unclear whether these asset managers are Intesa's in-house trading desk or other institutional clients of the bank.
A refined decision-making structure
This elaborate structure is common when a well-structured parent bank oversees a centralised strategy, delegating the actual execution of trading transactions to subsidiaries.
The Intesa group's interest in cryptocurrencies is not new. Activities on the part of the bank in this area had already emerged in January 2025.
CoinDesk had already reported on the purchase of 11 bitcoins by the investor, for a value at the time of around one million dollars, in January 2025. The banking company has had a proprietary trading desk for some time now, which has recently started to handle cryptocurrency trading as well. According to their exposure, which has been growing over the past 13 months, the group can be expected to continue trading these types of assets for the foreseeable future.
