For months, the narrative around traditional banks and crypto has been a tug-of-war between cautious exploration and outright hostility. Italy’s largest bank just placed a sizeable bet on the side of conviction. Intesa Sanpaolo grew its digital asset holdings from roughly $100 million to $235 million in the first quarter of 2026, according to the original report data sourced from Criptovaluta, marking one of the most direct moves into crypto by a major European commercial lender.

The bank didn’t just add more Bitcoin. It reworked its entire crypto allocation, adding Ethereum for the first time via the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust and building a new Ripple position through the Grayscale XRP Trust. At the same time, Intesa…