Harvard Discloses $86.8 Million Ether ETF Position While Trimming Bitcoin Holdings

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Harvard University’s endowment manager pared its Bitcoin ETF exposure by 21% in the fourth quarter and established its first-ever position in an Ether fund, a regulatory filing shows, signaling a diversification of the Ivy League institution’s crypto strategy.

Harvard Management Company held 5.35 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust as of Dec. 31, valued at $265.8 million, according to the 13F filing submitted Friday to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That marks a significant reduction from the 6.81 million shares worth $442.8 million reported three months earlier.

The endowment simultaneously disclosed a new $86.8 million stake in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust, comprising 3.87 million shares. The Ether investment marks the fund’s first publicly disclosed allocation to a product tracking the second-ranked cryptocurrency.

The quarter proved volatile for digital asset markets. Bitcoin tumbled from approximately $126,000 in October to $88,429 by year-end, while Ether suffered a 28% decline over the same period. Current prices show both assets have extended those losses, with Bitcoin near $68,600 and Ether around $1,900.

Even after the reduction, Bitcoin remains Harvard’s largest single disclosed equity holding, with the $265.8 million position surpassing the endowment’s stakes in tech giants Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon, the filing indicates. The combined crypto ETF exposure totals $352.6 million.