Harvard Endowment Rotates from Bitcoin to Ethereum
The Harvard Management Company, which oversees the largest U.S. university endowment, reduced its holdings in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF by 21%. It reallocated a portion of the funds into BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF, signaling a strategic hedge and growing institutional belief in Ethereum's infrastructure-driven potential.
- Harvard's endowment is the largest academic endowment in the world, valued at $56.9 billion as of June 30, 2025. - The investment manager for the endowment, Harvard Management Company (HMC), purchased 3.87 million shares of BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust, a stake valued at $86.8 million as of December 31. This was the endowment's first publicly disclosed investment in an Ethereum-linked fund. - Simultaneously, HMC reduced its position in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust by about 1.48 million shares. As of the end of the quarter, the remaining 5.35 million shares were valued at $265.8 million. - Despite the 21% reduction in its Bitcoin ETF holdings, the position remains Harvard's largest publicly disclosed equity holding, exceeding its stakes in major tech companies like Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. - The combined value of the endowment's disclosed holdings in the two cryptocurrency funds totaled $352.6 million at the close of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025. - This portfolio adjustment occurred during a volatile period for the cryptocurrency market; Bitcoin's price fell from a peak of nearly $126,000 in October 2025 to $88,429 by the end of December, while Ethereum saw a decline of roughly 30% in the same period. - The endowment's cryptocurrency investment strategy has faced criticism from some academic figures who point to the assets' lack of intrinsic value and inherent risk.
