Italy's biggest bank said "arrivederci" to 94% of its IBIT, tripled the ETH slice 🍝

Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's largest banking group, cut its position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) by 93.7% in the second quarter while tripling its stake in the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB), according to a Form 13F filed Friday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The bank reported holding 40,723 IBIT shares valued at $1.36 million as of June 30, down from 646,809 shares three months earlier. Its reported call position shrank 99.3%, from an underlying 2.5 million shares to 18,000, and a new put position covering 500,000 IBIT shares appeared in the filing.

The Italian lender simultaneously grew its Ethereum exposure, lifting its ETHB position from 116,200 shares at the end of March to 349,600 shares worth $7.1 million as of June 30. Intesa Sanpaolo's filing also showed a reduced Bitwise Solana Staking ETF position, which collapsed from 2,817 shares to seven, alongside a new $293,190 stake in the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust.

Bitcoin exposure was not abandoned. Intesa Sanpaolo retained 3.47 million shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) worth $67.6 million, its largest crypto-linked holding in the disclosure. The bank kept its Grayscale XRP Trust ETF (GXRP) position unchanged at 712,319 shares, worth about $14.4 million, nearly doubled its BitGo stake to 323,000 shares, and trimmed its Coinbase position to 7,000 shares.

Crypto ETFs give banks and other institutional investors exposure to digital assets through regulated securities products, bypassing the custody, compliance and operational requirements of holding cryptocurrencies directly. BlackRock's staked Ethereum product is structured to earn network rewards on its holdings, a feature Bitcoin funds do not offer.

Intesa Sanpaolo is not alone in reshaping its crypto ETF book. Trading firm Jane Street cut its IBIT common stock position by 71% in the first quarter while nearly doubling its iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) stake to 11.1 million shares and lifting its Fidelity Ethereum Fund position from $3.1 million to $43.6 million, though its role as a market maker means some inventory is held for clients rather than as directional bets. Flow data from SoSoValue shows US Bitcoin spot ETFs posted heavy net outflows for most of the second quarter, with a record $4.5 billion leaving in June alone, the worst month on record for the products. Most remaining Q2 13F disclosures are due before the August 14 deadline.