UBS, the Swiss bank with more than $7 trillion in assets under management, reported a sharp rise in its exposure to options on BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) in the second quarter. In its quarterly 13F filing, UBS listed call positions, known in the market as calls, covering 1.95 million underlying IBIT shares as of June 30, up from 80,000 three months earlier, a roughly 24-fold increase. Direct IBIT holdings rose 12% to 407,890 shares, worth about $13.6 million. Positions on puts fell roughly 53% to 143,300 underlying shares from 303,300. The filing does not include strike prices or expirations, so the net direction of the positions is not confirmed. The increase may reflect client-driven initiatives, dealer hedging, market-making, or proprietary activity. UBS this year began preparing private-banking access to bitcoin and ether trading.
CoinDesk (Q2 13F regulatory filing)