Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank, sharply increased its crypto exposure in the first quarter of 2026, raising its holdings from about $100 million at the end of last year to roughly $235 million by March 31.
The expansion was mainly driven by larger Bitcoin investments through the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF. The bank also entered Ethereum for the first time through BlackRock’s iShares Staked Ethereum Trust and added a new XRP position via the Grayscale XRP Trust ETF, reportedly worth around $26 million, according to local crypto outlet Criptovaluta.it.
Intesa also opened its first crypto-related derivatives position through call options tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. The bank previously said its crypto investments are mainly for proprietary trading, though it has not clarified whether some positions are linked to products offered to institutional clients.
At the same time, Intesa nearly exited its Solana exposure. Its holdings in the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF dropped from more than 266,000 shares to just 2,817 shares during the quarter.
The bank also adjusted its crypto-related stock portfolio. It bought 165,600 shares of BitGo for the first time while fully exiting its position in Bitmine. Intesa additionally closed its put options tied to Strategy and reduced its holdings in Cantor Equity Partners II, the company linked to tokenization firm Securitize’s planned listing. Its Coinbase position increased from 1,500 shares to more than 10,000 shares.
The moves come as Intesa strengthens its presence in the digital asset sector. Last month, Ripple announced plans to provide custody services to the Italian banking giant.
Intesa shares closed at 5.74 euros on Friday, down 1.56% for the day and more than 3% lower year-to-date, according to Yahoo Finance.
The developments reflect a broader push by European banks into crypto services. Spain’s BBVA, France’s BPCE and Belgium’s KBC have already launched crypto trading services for retail customers.
Meanwhile, a group of 12 major European banks, including BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit and Deutsche Bank, recently formed the stablecoin initiative Qivalis, which aims to launch a MiCA-compliant euro-backed stablecoin in the second half of 2026.
Featured image from: Cointelegraph.com