Harvard Holds $101M Bitcoin ETF Stake After Two Quarters of…

Harvard University's endowment kept its holdings in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust unchanged during the second quarter, breaking a two-quarter streak of selling even as Bitcoin prices and the ETF's value declined.

Harvard Management Company's latest 13F filing showed 3,044,612 IBIT shares as of June 30, worth about $101.4 million. That share count was identical to the prior quarter, though the position's market value fell by roughly $15.6 million during the period due to the drop in IBIT's price. The unchanged position follows two consecutive reductions: Harvard held 6,813,612 shares at the end of September 2025, cut that stake by 21% in the fourth quarter, and reduced it another 43% in the first quarter of 2026.

The endowment also previously disclosed an $86.8 million position in BlackRock's spot Ethereum ETF, but that holding no longer appears in the filing. Gold now represents a larger disclosed allocation than Bitcoin, with Harvard reporting $149.5 million in the iShares Gold Trust and $21.7 million in the SPDR Gold Trust, totaling $171.2 million in gold-related products versus $101.4 million in IBIT.

Harvard was not alone in holding steady. Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company kept 14,721,917 IBIT shares worth $490.1 million, making it the fund's second-largest disclosed 13F holding. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council held 8,218,712 shares valued at $273.6 million, where IBIT remained its largest reported position. Together, the two institutions owned roughly 22.9 million IBIT shares worth about $764 million, with their combined position declining approximately $118 million in value without either fund reducing its share count. Dartmouth College also reported no changes to its holdings across three crypto ETFs, though the combined value of its Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana ETF positions fell from $14.6 million to $12.4 million on weaker market prices.

Wall Street Firms Show Mixed Moves

Morgan Stanley reported about 16.5 million IBIT shares worth $548.6 million as of June 30, down from 17.3 million shares three months earlier. Its share count fell 4.5%, while the position's value declined 17.3% as lower Bitcoin prices compounded the reduction. The bank also disclosed 2.57 million shares worth $43.3 million in the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, which began trading in April.

JPMorgan moved in the opposite direction, raising its reported IBIT position from about 8.3 million shares to roughly 10.4 million. The bank also more than quadrupled its stake in BlackRock's Ethereum ETF, with those shares worth approximately $14.3 million at quarter-end. Tudor Investment Corporation, founded by Paul Tudor Jones, increased its IBIT stake by 109,446 shares to 688,529 shares worth $22.9 million. Its filing also showed IBIT put options with an underlying value of $23.8 million and call options worth $4.93 million.

Bitcoin was trading near $63,000 during the reporting period, down almost 30% for the year and roughly 50% below its October 2025 peak above $126,000. BlackRock's IBIT still held about $47.35 billion in net assets as of Aug. 13, and Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas said its 13F ownership list had grown to roughly 1,500 institutions despite the pullback. He cautioned that 13F filings do not separate proprietary investments from client, hedging or inventory positions, so not every bank or trading firm holding should be read as a directional Bitcoin bet. The filings disclose long positions in U.S.-listed securities and options at quarter-end but exclude short positions and most private assets, making changes in share counts a more reliable signal than headline dollar values.