Intesa Sanpaolo slashes IBIT 94%, triples ETHB in Q2
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- Intesa Sanpaolo cut its IBIT position by 94% to 40,723 shares valued at $1.36 million as of June 30, down from 646,809 shares three months earlier, while nearly eliminating its call options (99% reduction) and adding put options covering 500,000 shares.
- Intesa tripled its iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB) position to 349,600 shares worth $7.10 million, up from $3.15 million, bucking the broader outflow trend in spot ether ETFs.
- Bitcoin slid 14% in Q2 and ether slumped 25%, with U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recording $4.89 billion in net outflows and IBIT alone shedding $2.95 billion, while spot ether ETFs lost more than $715 million.
- Among crypto-linked equities, Intesa nearly doubled its BitGo (BTGO) stake to 323,000 shares while cutting Coinbase (COIN) by 32%, Circle Internet (CRCL) by 10%, and Robinhood (HOOD) by 43%.
- Intesa opened a new 5.66 million-share SpaceX (SPCX) position valued at $966.42 million — its largest disclosed holding — while slashing its Tesla (TSLA) stake by 92%; SpaceX itself holds 18,712 bitcoin worth $1.18 billion.
- CEO Carlo Messina had described Intesa's first direct bitcoin purchase — 11 BTC for about 1 million euros in January 2025 — as an 'experiment,' framing the bank's crypto involvement as exploratory from the start.
Why it matters: A major European bank is rotating between crypto assets rather than uniformly trimming, tripling ether ETF exposure while hedging the residual IBIT position with puts — a pattern visible only in the filing detail. The simultaneous $966 million SpaceX position, which itself holds 18,712 BTC, signals where institutional conviction is being parked when direct crypto ETF bets are being cut.
