UBS Group, Switzerland’s largest bank with $6.6 trillion in assets, has significantly expanded its bet on the digital asset ecosystem. The banking giant has solidified its position as a major institutional holder of MicroStrategy (MSTR), which is often seen as a corporate proxy for Bitcoin, according to its latest disclosure.
billion dollar bet
The Swiss giant recently revealed that it purchased an additional 551,121 shares of MicroStrategy worth approximately $98 million.
This latest acquisition brings UBS’s total holdings to 6.31 million shares, representing a massive $1.12 billion position in the Bitcoin treasury company.
The bank’s MSTR accumulation was positive throughout 2026.
UBS held 2.52 million shares worth $415 million as of January. The bank nearly doubled its holdings in February, adding 3.23 million shares for a total of 5.76 million shares ($805 million). In May, total holdings jumped to 6.31 million shares ($1.12 billion).
$XRP exposure
The move to MicroStrategy is part of a broader organizational shift towards UBS’s digital assets.
A newly surfaced SEC Form 13F filing reveals that the bank also formally discloses the following exposures: $XRP. While this amount is relatively small for an asset manager of UBS’s size, the symbolic weight of this move is considerable for the institutional credibility of the asset.
In its early days, UBS executives expressed strong skepticism about cryptocurrencies, questioning the ability of assets like Bitcoin to function as money or a reliable store of value. As a result, major Swiss banks initially avoided direct cryptocurrency transactions and limited their involvement in digital assets to internal investigations and private blockchain experiments.
Over time, this skepticism evolved into a calculated “fast follow” strategy.
