Harvard Management Company, the investment arm of Harvard University's endowment, has significantly adjusted its cryptocurrency holdings, according to its latest quarterly 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The filing, covering the fourth quarter of 2025, reveals a strategic shift where the endowment reduced its position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) while simultaneously initiating its first-ever investment in an Ethereum exchange-traded fund.
The endowment sold approximately 1.48 million shares of the Bitcoin ETF, representing a reduction of about 21% from its previous holdings. This brought the value of its IBIT position down to roughly $265.8 million as of December 31, 2025. Despite this cut, Bitcoin remained the endowment's single largest publicly disclosed equity holding at year-end, surpassing its reported stakes in major technology firms like Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Concurrently, Harvard opened a new $86.8 million position in BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust. This marks the Ivy League institution's first publicly disclosed exposure to Ethereum through a regulated ETF product. The combined value of its crypto ETF investments stood at $352.6 million at the close of the quarter.
This rebalancing act occurred during a period of pronounced volatility in digital asset markets. Bitcoin had reached a peak of approximately $126,000 in October 2025 before declining to $88,429 by the end of the year. Ethereum fell about 28% during the same quarter. The timing suggests Harvard was strategically reallocating its crypto exposure rather than exiting the asset class entirely.
The move represents an evolution in Harvard's crypto strategy. Earlier in 2025, the endowment first disclosed a smaller stake in the Bitcoin ETF, around $116 million. It then aggressively increased its exposure, tripling its IBIT position to over $440 million by the third quarter, making it the fund's largest public equity holding at one point. Harvard's initial foray into Bitcoin ETFs was seen as a significant signal of growing institutional trust in regulated crypto products, given the endowment's reputation for a conservative, long-term investment approach.
The decision to diversify into Ethereum reflects a broader trend among large institutions to spread risk across multiple digital assets. Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, a finance professor at UCLA, expressed skepticism about the strategy, stating that adding Ethereum increases his concerns about Harvard's exposure to what he views as an unproven asset class with unclear valuation methods. Despite such criticism, Harvard's maintained multi-hundred-million-dollar commitment during market weakness signals a long-term, confident view of digital assets as a component of a diversified institutional portfolio.
