Harvard Endowment Makes Strategic Entry into Bitcoin with $443 Million Investment in BlackRock’s IBIT

Harvard Endowment’s Strategic Bitcoin Investment

Harvard University’s endowment has taken a significant step into the cryptocurrency space with a $443 million investment in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). This positions the endowment as one of the largest stakeholders in a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Investment Details

According to the latest 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvard’s investment fund held 6.8 million shares of IBIT in the third quarter of 2025. This stake represents over 20% of its U.S.-listed public equity holdings.

Unconventional Move

Typically, institutional investors like Harvard favor private equity, real estate, and direct investments over ETFs. This move into IBIT is thus particularly noteworthy. Despite this significant investment, it constitutes less than 1% of Harvard’s total endowment, which exceeds $55 billion. However, it ranks the university among the top 20 holders of the fund, as reported by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.

Market Context

This investment comes as bitcoin prices have dipped more than 5% over the past week, currently trading around $96,000. IBIT, recognized as the world’s largest spot bitcoin ETF, holds nearly $75 billion in net assets, according to SoSoValue data.