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The bank maintains a significant put option position on Strategy, potentially benefiting from the company’s shares trading above the valuation of its BTC assets.
(Riccardo Tuninato/Unsplash/Modified by CoinDesk)
What to know:
- Intesa Sanpaolo reported $96 million in bitcoin ETF assets, which include the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and iShares Bitcoin Trust.
- The bank has a significant put option position on Strategy, which may allow it to benefit from the company’s stock trading above the valuation of its BTC assets.
- The filing indicated a Share-Defined designation, hinting that investment decisions were made collaboratively by Intesa Sanpaolo and executed through affiliates.
Italian banking leader Intesa Sanpaolo revealed $96 million in bitcoin ETF holdings and a considerable options position related to Strategy shares, alongside minor crypto-linked exposure.
In a 13F filing for the quarter concluding in December 2025, the bank outlines five spot bitcoin ETF positions, including $72.6 million in the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and $23.4 million in the iShares Bitcoin Trust, bringing total exposure to just over $96 million.
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It also includes a $4.3 million investment in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF, which tracks the value of solana and captures staking rewards.
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The bank has also established a significant put option position on Strategy, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, with 714,644 BTC on its balance sheet, valued at approximately $184.6 million.
This put option affords the firm the opportunity, but not the obligation, to sell MSTR shares at a predetermined price in the future. This position, along with the directional long stance on bitcoin ETFs, may represent a strategy to take advantage of the company trading above the valuation of its BTC assets, assessed by the multiple of net asset value (mNAV), which compares enterprise value to bitcoin value.
Strategy was reported to be trading at 2.9 mNAV at one point and currently stands at 1.21 mNAV, according to its website. A narrowing of this gap could yield a profit for the position as the stock price returns to the level of its bitcoin assets.
The filing also reveals equity stakes in crypto-related firms, including Coinbase, Robinhood, BitMine, and ETHZilla. These are relatively minor investments, with the largest being around $4.4 million in Circle.
The filing employs the “DFND” (Shared-Defined) designation, indicating that investment decisions were collaboratively made by Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. and its affiliated asset managers. It remains unclear whether these asset managers are linked to Intesa’s own trading desk or institutional clients.
This framework is typical when the parent bank maintains oversight or a centralized strategy while subsidiaries carry out trades. CoinDesk has reached out to Intesa Sanpaolo for a response but has not received a reply at the time of writing.
The bank’s U.S. wealth management division submitted a separate 13F without any digital asset exposure.
Earlier last year, Intesa Sanpaolo acquired 11 bitcoin for over $1 million. The institution has operated a proprietary trading desk for several years, which also manages cryptocurrency trading.
