The university’s endowment reduced its positions in Bitcoin while simultaneously opening a new $86.8 million exposure to Ether ETFs.
Harvard Management Company reduced its holdings in Bitcoin ETFs by more than one-fifth during the fourth quarter, while simultaneously opening its first position in an Ethereum ETF worth $86.8 million. The move emerged from documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday.
The Ivy League university’s endowment held 5.35 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, valued at $265.8 million as of December 31. The position represents a reduction of 1.48 million shares compared to the previous quarter, when Harvard had reported 6.81 million shares worth $442.8 million.
Simultaneously, Harvard opened a new $86.8 million position in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust during the quarter, acquiring 3.87 million shares. The ether investment marked the endowment’s first publicly disclosed position in a fund tracking the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Overall, Harvard’s combined exposure to the two major digital assets amounts to $352.6 million.
Despite the reduction, bitcoin remained Harvard’s largest publicly disclosed holding as of December 31, with the $265.8 million position exceeding the endowment’s stakes in Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon. However, Harvard’s crypto strategy has drawn criticism from academic observers. Andrew F. Siegel, professor emeritus of finance at the University of Washington, described the bitcoin investment as “risky,” while UCLA’s Avanidhar Subrahmanyam expressed reservations about the endowment’s digital asset strategy.
