Banco Santander Discloses Spot Bitcoin ETF Stake in 13F Filing

Banco Santander, the Spanish banking group with more than $16 billion in disclosed U.S. equity holdings, reported a stake in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust for the first time, according to a 13F filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

The filing shows 129,615 IBIT shares worth $4.31 million as of June 30. Santander also disclosed 297,947 shares of the iShares Ethereum Trust worth $3.54 million — its first reported Ether ETF position — alongside a $1.51 million holding in the iShares Gold Trust.

Neither fund appeared in the bank's previous quarterly disclosure, filed May 8, and a full-text search of the bank's SEC filings shows no prior Bitcoin ETF positions.

0.05% of the Book

The crypto exposure is small against the bank's $16.08 billion in reported U.S. equity positions — the two funds combined make up roughly 0.05% of the book, spread across 929 line items. The filing covers holdings managed by Santander and five affiliated managers; both crypto ETF positions sit with SAM Investment Holdings, the Madrid-based holding company for Santander Asset Management, which reports shared investment discretion over the shares.

13F filings disclose long U.S. equity positions of institutional managers with over $100 million in assets, and don't distinguish between proprietary bets and positions held on behalf of clients or funds. The filing was signed by Ruben Navajo, Santander's head of group accounting, on July 28.

Bitcoin traded at $64,721 at press time, up 1.1% in the past 24 hours, while Ether gained 1.4% to $1,918, according to CoinGecko.

Banks Keep Filing In

The disclosure puts one of Europe's largest banks on the growing list of traditional financial institutions reporting spot crypto ETF exposure in quarterly filings, more than two years after U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024. IBIT remains the largest of the funds.

Santander has moved on crypto elsewhere in its business: the group's digital bank, Openbank, offers crypto trading to retail customers in Europe.