Quick Take
- Harvard Management Company held 6,813,612 shares of BlackRock’s IBIT worth $442.8 million as of Sept. 30, 2025.
- This represents a 257% increase from 1.9 million shares valued at approximately $116 million in Q2.
- IBIT became Harvard’s largest disclosed U.S. equity position, surpassing stakes in tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon.
- The university also nearly doubled its gold ETF holdings to $235 million.
Harvard University has markedly expanded its cryptocurrency exposure through a substantial increase in holdings of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), the leading spot Bitcoin ETF.
According to a 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvard Management Company, which oversees the university’s roughly $57 billion endowment, reported owning 6,813,612 shares of IBIT valued at $442.8 million as of September 30, 2025. This marks a 257% surge from the 1,906,000 shares worth about $116 million disclosed at the end of the previous quarter.
The position now ranks as Harvard’s top U.S.-listed equity holding in the filing and its largest quarterly increase, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. “It’s super rare/difficult to get an endowment to bite on an ETF—esp a Harvard or Yale, it’s as good a validation as an ETF can get,” Balchunas noted in an X post.
Despite representing less than 1% of the overall endowment, the allocation underscores growing institutional comfort with regulated Bitcoin products. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, launched in January 2024, provide traditional investors exposure without direct custody requirements.
Harvard also boosted its exposure to traditional safe-haven assets, increasing shares in the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) from around 333,000 to 661,391, valued at $235 million—a near-doubling. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan highlighted this as a “debasement trade,” with Bitcoin receiving roughly twice the allocation of gold.
Other institutions showed similar trends in Q3 filings, including Emory University expanding its Bitcoin ETF positions and Abu Dhabi’s Al Warda Investments raising its IBIT stake to over $517 million.
While Bitcoin’s price has faced volatility since September, with recent declines pushing IBIT’s value lower for holders, these disclosures reflect longer-term conviction among sophisticated investors.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute advice of any kind. Readers should conduct their own research before making any decisions.
