Key Takeaways
- JPMorgan’s Q2 2026 13F filing shows a $355.7 million stake in Blackrock’s IBIT, up from roughly $162 million in Q1.
- The bank returned to XRP through Bitwise and Grayscale funds after exiting the asset entirely earlier in 2026.
- U.S. spot citcoin ETFs lost $61.16 million on August 13, even as JPMorgan’s options book turned more bullish.
JPMorgan’s Bitcoin, Ether Holdings Climb in Q2
JPMorgan Chase & Co. filed its 13F-HR institutional holdings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on August 12, disclosing roughly 10.4 million shares of Blackrock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), worth about $355.7 million as of June 30. That is up from close to 8.3 million shares three months earlier, when the position was valued near $162 million, according the bank’s first-quarter filing.
The IBIT stake is a sliver of JPMorgan’s total reportable holdings, which the same filing pegs at $1.807 trillion spread across 34,064 individual positions. Still, the quarter-over-quarter growth rate outpaces most of the bank’s traditional equity book.
The bank’s derivatives book also shifted in a more bullish direction. Call options tied to IBIT rose to 3.94 million from 3.77 million, while put options fell to about 3.5 million from 4.75 million, the filing shows. Fewer puts relative to calls typically signals reduced hedging against a price decline.
Lastly, the bank’s stake in Blackrock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) grew 338% to roughly $14.3 million, spread across almost 1.17 million shares, per the same filing data.
A Return to XRP
Perhaps the more notable shift is JPMorgan’s re-entry into XRP given that the bank’s Q1 filing showed it had exited its Bitwise XRP ETF position entirely, dropping from 3,870 shares to zero. The Q2 filing reverses that retreat, with new positions in the Bitwise XRP ETF and the Grayscale XRP Trust ETF, plus a stake in Armada Acquisition Corp II, a Ripple-backed special purpose acquisition company trading under the ticker XRPN.
The XRP-linked positions are still small in dollar terms next to the bank’s citcoin and ether holdings. The Bitwise XRP ETF stake is valued at $1,356 across 113 shares, the Grayscale XRP Trust ETF position is worth $3,763 across 181 shares, and the Armada Acquisition Corp II holding, a blank-check company pursuing a merger tied to Ripple’s ecosystem and trading under the ticker XRPN, is valued at $207,295 across 19,894 shares.
Small as they are, the shift from a full exit to renewed exposure across three separate XRP-linked vehicles suggests the bank’s asset management arm is no longer avoiding the asset. It follows a broader pattern at JPMorgan, whose analysts have previously argued that institutional investors are increasingly treating citcoin as competition for gold allocations, a case the bank has made in its own research.
Broader ETF Flows Tell a Different Story
JPMorgan’s accumulation stands in contrast to the wider citcoin ETF market’s performance the same week. U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $61.16 million on August 13, snapping a brief rebound from the prior session. Fidelity’s FBTC led the redemptions with $46.82 million pulled out, while Blackrock’s IBIT saw a comparatively modest $14.34 million in outflows. Ether funds moved the opposite direction, adding $7.38 million in net inflows that day.
The August 13 outflow followed an even larger $144.67 million exit on August 11 that snapped a five-session inflow streak, once again showing just how choppy short-term flows have been even as filings like JPMorgan’s point to steady accumulation underneath.
JPMorgan’s next 13F filing, due in mid-November, will show whether the bank continued adding to its citcoin, ether and XRP positions through the third quarter or pared back after Q2’s buildup. Investors will also be watching whether the options shift toward more calls and fewer puts proves to be a genuine bullish signal or simply routine portfolio rebalancing.
