Intesa Sanpaolo Dismantles Large Bitcoin Stake, Favors Yield-Generating Staked ETH
Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's largest banking group, has made significant changes to its cryptocurrency portfolio. In a quarterly filing, the bank revealed it had slashed its common-share position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by 93.7%, leaving only 40,723 shares.
At the same time, Intesa Sanpaolo tripled its holdings in the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF to 349,600 shares, a 201% increase from the previous quarter.
The bank's options structure also underwent significant changes. The underlying-share amount tied to the bank's reported IBIT call position dropped 99.3% to just 18,000 shares, while a new put position equivalent to 500,000 IBIT shares appeared on the books.
This suggests a pronounced shift toward downside protection or outright bearish positioning in Bitcoin, with the size of the IBIT put relative to the remaining common shares hard to ignore.