Crypto securities holdings by Dutch companies, institutions and households have skyrocketed in recent years, new figures from DNB show. Together, all sectors in the Netherlands owned around €81 million in indirect crypto investments at the end of 2020, but by October 2025 this had risen to €1.2 billion.
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Although the value of indirect crypto investments has grown sharply, €1.2 billion still only represents a fraction of the Netherlands' total securities holdings (0.03%).
At De Nederlandsche Bank, we independently compile statistics on the Dutch financial sector and economy. This article is based on these statistics. More information on our statistics and all dashboards can be found on our Statistics homepage.
Dutch companies, institutions and households investing in crypto securities invest in cryptos indirectly, i.e. without actually buying or holding crypto-assets themselves.
DNB looked at the following three types of crypto securities: Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs, investment fund shares), Exchange Traded Notes (ETNs, debt securities) and crypto treasury shares (shares in companies that buy crypto-assets).
Both ETFs and ETNs track the value of an underlying index, in this case a crypto such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, or a combination of different crypto-assets. If the price of these cryptos goes up, so does the value of your investment, and vice versa. Investing in ETFs means buying shares from an investment fund that is traded on the stock exchange. Investing in ETNs means buying exchange-traded debt securities that follow the price trend of crypto-assets. Neither case involves buying cryptos directly: these are indirect investments.
Crypto treasuries are involved in buying crypto-assets and also often engage in related activities such as crypto mining, i.e. using computing power to create new crypto 'coins'. They may also operate as custody companies or crypto-asset trading platforms. The shares issued by these companies are highly dependent on the price of crypto-assets.
The figures in this news item were compiled using securities data received from financial institutions that report to DNB. In addition, a list of ETFs, ETNs and crypto treasury shares has been compiled based on public information. DNB has calculated the holdings of crypto securities by comparing this list with the data from securities reporting.
Dutch households held the largest share of crypto ETFs and ETNs at the end of October 2025, worth €182 million and €213 million respectively. Investment funds also held a significant share of crypto ETFs, with a value of €40 million.
Pension funds hold the largest share of crypto treasury shares, representing a value of €287 million in October 2025. Households hold €243 million in such shares.
Incidentally, the sharp rise in the Netherlands' indirect crypto holdings is mainly due to the rise in value of the underlying crypto-assets. For instance, following an erratic course, the Bitcoin price rose by some 72% over the past five years, before plummeting in late 2025. New purchases contributed far less to the rise in crypto holdings. Indeed, about €45 million more crypto securities were sold than purchased in the Netherlands in the past five years.
Although more and more crypto securities have been issued in recent years, the greatest impact on total holdings comes from seven specific securities that account for 70% of Dutch indirect crypto holdings.
These include four ETFs, one ETN and two specific crypto treasury shares. All these securities are issued by foreign institutions, for example in the United States and Sweden.
The financial sector in the Netherlands held €113 million worth of crypto-assets at the end of the third quarter of 2025, new DNB figures also show. These are direct holdings of crypto-assets, as opposed to indirect investments in crypto securities. Financial institutions have been submitting data on their crypto holdings to DNB since early 2025 as part of their regular reporting. This kind of data is not yet collected from other sectors, such as households and businesses.
Three types of financial institutions are currently investing in crypto-assets: investment funds (€76 million), other financial intermediaries (€25 million) and financial auxiliaries (€12 million). Banks and institutional investors such as pension funds and insurers are not yet active in this market.
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