PANews reported on November 11, 2026, citing Cointelegraph, that Barclays and Citigroup increased reported holdings of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in third-quarter 13F filings. The positions are as of September 30, 2026, compared with the end of June. This article is a later English restatement of that report. It is not a new filing and it is not a price forecast.
Barclays increased its IBIT holding
According to the 13F filing described in the report, Barclays held 3.94 million shares of BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, as of September 30. That was 48% more than the 2.66 million shares it held at the end of June. The reported value of the position rose from about $88.5 million to about $187 million.
The report states both the share-count change and the value change. It does not separate how much of the higher value came from the added shares and how much from a change in IBIT’s price.
Citigroup opened FBTC and added to IBIT
The same report said Citigroup established a new position in Fidelity’s spot Bitcoin ETF, FBTC, worth about $119 million. It also increased its IBIT holding by 50%, to about 521,000 shares. The report does not give Citigroup’s previous IBIT share count or the dollar value of that IBIT stake.
Banks’ share of the reported institutional total
Citing Bitwise, PANews said that among 1,389 institutions that had submitted third-quarter reports, banks collectively held $258 million of spot Bitcoin ETFs. Banks’ share of that reported institutional total rose from 3.2% in the second quarter to 4.9%.
PANews presents the Barclays and Citigroup positions and the Bitwise bank total separately. It does not explain how the named holdings are included in the $258 million figure.
What the snapshot does not show
The documented change is a larger reported bank allocation to spot Bitcoin ETFs between the end of June and September 30, 2026, among the filers Bitwise counted. These are quarter-end snapshots attributed to Cointelegraph and Bitwise. They are not a forecast that bank holdings will keep rising, and they are not evidence about Bitcoin’s later price.
Treating the filings as a sign of continued bank participation would depend on assumptions the source does not test: that positions after September 30 still resembled the 13F snapshot, and that banks’ 4.9% share of the reported institutional total did not move back toward the second-quarter 3.2%. If later filings showed smaller bank positions or a lower bank share, that reading would not hold.
