Intesa Sanpaolo invests 1 million euros in Bitcoin

The Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo has purchased 11 Bitcoin.

Although the news has not been officially confirmed, it is based on a screenshot that certifies the purchase, and it has not been denied. 

The purchase of Bitcoin by Intesa Sanpaolo

According to what is reported in the screenshot, the confirmation would come from within, namely from the Head of Digital Assets Trading & Investments at Intesa Sanpaolo, Niccolò Bardoscia.

In fact, the screenshot shows an email from yesterday by Bardoscia in which he states unequivocally that Intesa Sanpaolo now owns 11 BTC.

The email also states that the first trade of Intesa Sanpaolo in Bitcoin has been completed, with a total value of 1 million euros, and that this is just the beginning. If confirmed, it would also be the first known direct purchase of BTC by an Italian bank.

There are no further details on this matter, so the only two known things are that 11 Bitcoin have been purchased by investing a sum of one million euros. 

Yesterday, in fact, the price of Bitcoin in euros fell for several hours below €91,000, thus allowing the purchase of 11 BTC with one million euros. 

Intesa Sanpaolo

Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. is the leading banking group in Italy by number of branches and market share.

It was born in 2007 from the merger between Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI, but its origins date back even to 1563, when the Istituto Bancario San Paolo was created in Turin. 

In total, it has more than 90,000 employees, with a revenue exceeding 25 billion euros. 

It is also listed on the stock exchange, in Milan, with the ticker ISP, and with a market capitalization exceeding 70 billion euros, it is included in both the Euro Stoxx 50 index and the Euro Stoxx 50 Banks.

To tell the truth, the stock in the market in recent years has suffered a lot, so much so that its price with the financial crisis of 2008 fell in four years from the highs of 6.2€ to lows below 1€.

In 2015 it seemed to have recovered, but with the start of the pandemic in 2020 it returned to 1.3€.

In recent years, however, it has shown an almost continuous growth, so much so that it returned above 2€ already in 2021, and last year even above 3€. 

In fact, at the beginning of November, it had even risen above 4€, and even if at the end of November it had returned to just above 3.5€, afterwards it recorded a rebound that brought it back above 3.9€. 

The financial crisis of 2008, whose consequences on the stock market for Intesa Sanpaolo extended until 2020, now seems to be behind us. 

Intesa Sanpaolo and Bitcoin

In December 2017, during the bull run, the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo, Carlo Messina, described Bitcoin as a speculative bubble, and essentially spoke very poorly of it. 

At the time, the price of BTC had risen from about $1,000 to over $10,000 in less than a year, only to return to $3,200 the following year. 

Since then, however, there have been two other major bullruns, one of which might still be ongoing, with the price rising to almost $70,000 in 2021, and above $100,000 at the end of 2024. 

Yet the year before Messina’s statements, when the price of Bitcoin was still below $1,000, the official X profile of Intesa Sanpaolo shared an interview with Professor Ametrano, who even then was one of the main figures in the Italian crypto scene. 

In light of everything that has happened in these years, perhaps it is possible to state that the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo may have changed his mind about Bitcoin, even if the amount invested (one million euros) is not much for a banking giant of this kind. 

The window for purchases

For a few days now, the hypothesis has been circulating that a possible good window for purchases has opened. 

There are still no certainties regarding this, but the decision of Intesa Sanpaolo to enter on Bitcoin at around $91,000, after staying out since the price fell below $10,000 in 2018, seems to suggest that even the main Italian banking group identified yesterday the opening of a possible good window for purchases. 

Since it first surpassed $100,000, after Trump’s electoral victory, the price of Bitcoin had not fallen below $91,000.

It did so yesterday, even briefly touching a price below $90,000. 

The key point of this reasoning is linked to the dollar, and to the inverse correlation over the medium/long term of the price of Bitcoin to the Dollar Index. 

In fact, the US dollar is very strong these days, even excessively so. This is putting pressure on the price of Bitcoin, which has fallen back below $100,000 when the Dollar Index has returned well above 108 points. 

The fact is that several analysts predict that the Dollar Index is set to fall, precisely because it is excessively high, and according to some, the decline could start as early as the second part of the current week. 

If it were to fall significantly below 108 points, or even below 107 points, the price of Bitcoin could benefit greatly from it, and given that the selling pressure of BTC at this moment is still very low, there is even the possibility that it may not return below $92,000 for a long time. 

It therefore does not seem at all a coincidence that Intesa Sanpaolo has decided to enter for the first time right now.