Italy's largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo more than doubled its cryptocurrency-related holdings in the first quarter of this year.

Cointelegraph, a blockchain media outlet, reported on May 17 that Intesa Sanpaolo's cryptocurrency exposure rose to about $235 million as of March 31 from about $100 million at the end of 2025.

The core move was a bigger bitcoin weighting. Intesa Sanpaolo increased its holdings of the ARK 21Shares spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund and BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), lifting overall exposure.

It also added ether for the first time through BlackRock's iShares Staking Ethereum Trust and newly bought XRP via the Grayscale XRP Trust ETF. Criptovaluta.it data put the size of the new XRP-related position at about $26 million.

By contrast, it sharply cut its Solana weighting. Holdings of the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF, which it had held in size the previous quarter, fell to 2,817 shares from 266,320 shares. That amounts to clearing out most of the position.

It also started derivatives trading for the first time. Intesa Sanpaolo opened a new call option position in the iShares Bitcoin Trust. The bank has previously said it holds cryptocurrency positions for proprietary trading purposes. It did not disclose whether some of those assets are also used to hedge products for professional clients.

It also adjusted its portfolio of crypto-linked stocks. Intesa Sanpaolo bought 165,600 shares of BitGo for the first time and disposed of its Bitmine position. It closed all of its Strategy put options and cut its stake in Cantor Equity Partners II, which is slated as the listing route for tokenisation company Securitize. It increased its Coinbase holding to 10,357 shares from 1,500 shares.

The moves coincide with Intesa Sanpaolo broadening its touchpoints with the digital asset sector. Ripple said last month it would provide custody services to an Italian banking group. That has drawn attention to whether Intesa Sanpaolo's market participation will remain simple investment or could later extend into service linkages.

Still, the portfolio change alone makes it difficult to say Intesa Sanpaolo is making a long-term bet on specific altcoins. It increased its weighting in spot bitcoin ETFs while sharply cutting Solana-related products and newly adding ether and XRP, suggesting a reallocation of exposure in line with market conditions.

In particular, the new call option position and the larger Coinbase stake represent a different kind of exposure from holding spot ETFs. That suggests Intesa Sanpaolo is looking not only at bitcoin's price but also at the growth potential of cryptocurrency trading infrastructure and the market for related financial products.

As a result, European banks' cryptocurrency strategies are widening beyond simple holdings to trading, custody and stablecoin infrastructure. Intesa Sanpaolo's latest portfolio reshuffle also clearly showed a direction of expanding bitcoin-focused investment, selectively adding altcoins and reducing Solana.