Harvard University’s endowment, managed by Harvard Management Company, kept its holdings in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) unchanged during the second quarter of 2026. This decision came after the institution had significantly reduced the position in previous periods.
According to the latest regulatory disclosures, the endowment reported 3,044,612 shares of IBIT as of June 30, 2026.
The stake was valued at approximately $101.4 million at that time.
The share count matched the figure reported at the end of the first quarter, indicating no additional purchases or sales of the Bitcoin exchange-traded fund during the April-to-June period.
This stability marked a shift from earlier activity.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Harvard trimmed its IBIT holdings by about 21 percent, moving from 6,813,612 shares at the end of September 2025 to 5,353,612 shares.
The endowment then cut the position more sharply in the first quarter of 2026, reducing it by roughly 43 percent to the current level of just over 3 million shares.
After those two consecutive quarters of selling, managers opted to maintain the existing exposure rather than continue reductions or rebuild the stake.
The dollar value of the IBIT position declined by about $15.6 million from the end of the first quarter to the end of the second, reflecting movements in the underlying price of the ETF rather than any change in the number of shares held.
Within the broader disclosed US equity portfolio of roughly $4.26 billion, the Bitcoin ETF ranked as the 11th-largest holding and represented about 2.4 percent of the reported assets.
Harvard’s approach to digital assets has evolved over the past year.
The endowment first disclosed an IBIT position in the second quarter of 2025 and expanded it substantially by the third quarter of that year, reaching a peak of more than 6.8 million shares.
Subsequent trims brought the allocation to its present size.
Notably, the university fully exited a BlackRock spot Ethereum ETF position valued at around $86.8 million during the first quarter of 2026 and did not re-enter any Ethereum-related funds in the second quarter.In comparison, gold-related holdings now exceed the Bitcoin ETF allocation.
Combined positions in the iShares Gold Trust and SPDR Gold Trust totaled about $171.2 million at the end of June.
The largest disclosed holding overall was SpaceX, valued at $2.21 billion and accounting for more than half of the reported public equity portfolio.
Other institutional investors showed mixed activity with IBIT during the same period.
Certain sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East maintained their substantial combined stakes without adjustment, while some major banks increased or reduced their reported holdings.
These quarterly 13F filings capture only a portion of the endowment’s overall investments, as the majority of Harvard’s approximately $57 billion endowment resides in private assets not subject to the same public disclosure rules.
The decision to hold the Bitcoin ETF position steady suggests a measured approach after earlier adjustments, treating the remaining allocation as a continuing element of the portfolio rather than a short-term trade. The details appear in Harvard Management Company’s Form 13F filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the period ended June 30, 2026.
