Intesa Sanpaolo cut its stake in its flagship spot bitcoin ETF by 94% during Q2 2026 while tripling its holdings in a staked ether product, a new SEC filing shows. The rotation came as bitcoin fell 14% and ether dropped 25% over the quarter.
Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's largest banking group, reduced its stake in Blackrock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by roughly 94%, dropping from 646,809 shares to 40,723 shares, according to its Q2 2026 Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The remaining stake was valued at $1.36 million as of June 30. The bank also eliminated 99% of its IBIT call options and opened a new put option covering 500,000 shares — a contract that gains value if the ETF's price falls further.
Bitcoin exposure narrows but doesn't disappear
Despite the IBIT cut, Intesa did not exit bitcoin entirely. It kept a 3.47 million-share stake in the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB), worth $67.6 million at quarter-end — down just 4% from the prior quarter and still the bank's largest crypto-linked position. Intesa also left its Grayscale XRP Trust stake unchanged at 712,319 shares.
Staked ether position triples
On the other side of the ledger, Intesa tripled its holdings in Blackrock's iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, growing the position from 116,200 shares ($3.15 million) at the end of March to 349,600 shares ($7.1 million) by June 30.
The staked ether fund passes through annual network rewards of approximately 3% to 4%. Because ether fell 25% over the quarter, the added exposure suggests Intesa bought into the weakness to capture yield unavailable in spot bitcoin funds. Investment bank Morgan Stanley has taken a similar approach, recently rolling out staked ether products for institutional clients.
Rotation fits a rough quarter for bitcoin ETFs
The adjustments came against a difficult backdrop: bitcoin fell 14% in the second quarter, its third consecutive quarterly loss, while spot bitcoin ETFs saw nearly $4.89 billion in aggregate net outflows. IBIT alone accounted for $2.95 billion of those withdrawals, and spot ether products saw more than $715 million in outflows.
Intesa Sanpaolo CEO Carlo Messina previously described the bank's first direct bitcoin purchase — 11 bitcoins for roughly 1 million euros in January 2025 — as an experimental trial. The latest filing shows that trial has turned into active, hedged portfolio management, with the bank willing to rotate between products as conditions shift.
Source: Bitcoin News
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