Italian banking giant Intesa Sanpaolo disclosed $96 million in bitcoin ETF holdings and a significant option position tied to Strategi shares, along with minor crypto-linked exposure.
In a 13F filing for the quarter ending December 2025, the bank lists five spot bitcoin ETF positions, including $72.6 million in the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and $23.4 million in the iShares Bitcoin Trust, for a total exposure of just over $96 million.
It also includes a $4.3 million stake in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF, which tracks the value of solana and capture effort rewards.
The bank also submitted a large put option position on Strategy, the largest corporate owner of bitcoin with 714,644 BTC on its balance sheet, worth approximately $184.6 million.
This put option gives the company the option, but not the obligation, to sell MSTR shares at a specified price in the future. The position, combined with the directional long position on bitcoin ETFs, could reflect a trade taking advantage of the company trading above the value of its BTC holdings, as measured by the multiple of net asset value (mNAV), which compares company value to bitcoin value.
Strategi traded at 2.9 mNAV at one point and is now at 1.21 mNAV, according to its website. This gap closing would make the position profitable as the share price falls back to the level of its bitcoin holdings.
The filing also lists stakes in crypto-linked companies, including Coinbase, Robinhood, BitMine and ETHZilla. These are smaller positions, with the largest at about $4.4 million being on Circle.
The application uses the designation “DFND” (Shared-Defined), indicating that investment decisions were made jointly by Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and associated asset managers. Whether these asset managers are Intesa’s own trading desk or institutional clients is still unclear.
This structure is common when the parent bank exercises oversight or centralized strategy while subsidiaries execute trades. CoinDesk has reached out to Intesa Sanapolo for comment, but has not heard back at the time of writing.
The bank’s US wealth management arm filed a separate 13F with no exposure to digital assets.
Early last year, Intesa Sanapolo bought 11 bitcoins for over $1 million. For years, the firm has had a proprietary trading desk that also handles cryptocurrency trading.
