JPMorgan Chase is confirmed to have increased its holdings of Strategy shares by 36 percent in the third quarter. Its holdings of BlackRock's spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), IBIT, were tallied at about $540 million.

On Nov. 12, blockchain outlet Bitcoin Magazine reported that JPMorgan's 13F filing showed it held 848,932 Strategy shares as of Sept. 30, valued at $131.3 million. The holding rose by 224,545 shares from 624,387 at the end of June.

The number of shares held rose 36 percent, but the value more than doubled. That reflected an increase in Strategy's per-share price in the filing to $154.67 from $92.68 over the same period.

The value of the IBIT position far exceeded the value of the Strategy shareholding. The IBIT holding was 11,408,930 shares, up 1,001,295 shares, or about 9.6 percent, from the end of June. The position was valued at $539.98 million as of the end of September. It also held other spot bitcoin ETFs, including 155,785 shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) and 66,264 shares of Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB).

Holdings of shares in cryptocurrency-related companies also increased. Coinbase holdings were 1,581,814 shares, up 13 percent from the end of June, valued at $300.58 million. Strive holdings rose 179 percent to 128,788 shares, valued at $3.77 million.

These assets are linked to the cryptocurrency market, but they have different investment characteristics. Spot ETFs such as IBIT track the bitcoin price, while shares of companies such as Strategy and Coinbase are also affected by business performance and financing conditions.

The report, however, also aggregated holdings from 17 other managers. The disclosed amounts may include holdings in client, fund and discretionary management accounts, making it difficult to interpret all of them as JPMorgan's proprietary investments. The data are as of Sept. 30 and do not reflect subsequent trading, so it is not possible to conclude the current scale of holdings or investment direction.