Harvard Boosts BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Holding 3.6x To $443M

Harvard University boosted its exposure to Bitcoin through BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) by 3.6x in the third quarter to almost $443 million, making it a larger position than its stakes in Amazon and Microsoft.

Its latest filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows the world’s largest academic endowment held 6.8 million shares in BlackRock’s IBIT, up 257% from 1.9 million in June, making the Bitcoin fund its single largest US-listed investment, up from fifth previously. The position now also surpasses its allocation to the SPDR Gold Trust.

The move is a striking show of confidence in Bitcoin from the world’s largest academic endowment. Institutional investors like Harvard typically favor private equity, real estate, and other alternative assets over ETFs, making the endowment’s growing exposure to BlackRock’s Bitcoin product especially notable.

”It’s as good a validation as an ETF can get,” said Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas on X. “It’s super rare/difficult to get an endowment to bite on an ETF- esp a Harvard or Yale,”

Just checked and yeah $IBIT is now Harvard’s largest position in its 13F and its biggest position increase in Q3. It’s super rare/difficult to get an endowment to bite on an ETF- esp a Harvard or Yale, it’s as good a validation as an ETF can get. That said, half a billion is a… https://t.co/oTiSL29llB pic.twitter.com/yw0tRcD1ad

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) November 15, 2025

The stake makes Harvard the 16th-largest holder of BlackRock’s IBIT.

IBIT Accounts For Over 20% Of Harvard’s Portfolio

The IBIT investment now account for just over 20% of the university’s US-listed public equity holdings.

It’s unclear from the filing how much the academic endowment spent to acquire its IBIT holdings. However, the value of its total shares have dropped in recent months following a decline in IBIT’s share price. 

IBIT share price (Source: Google Finance)

Over the past month, IBIT’s share price has plummeted over 12%, data from Google Finance shows. It continued this downtrend in the past 24 hours, when it dropped more than 3%. 

That’s a similar movement seen in Bitcoin’s price, which IBIT tracks, during the same period. Data from CoinMarketCap shows that the largest crypto by market cap plunged over 11% in the past month, but only a fraction of a percentage in the last 24 hours.

IBIT One Of The US Spot Bitcoin ETFs On A 3-Day Outflows Streak

The filing from Harvard shows that the university is investing in Bitcoin, with US spot BTC ETFs now offering investors a traditional vehicle to get exposure to the crypto. Regarding its choice to only invest in IBIT even while there are other similar products in the market, the move could be due to the fact that IBIT is the largest spot Bitcoin ETF by cumulative inflows.

Since launching last year, IBIT has accumulated $63.789 billion, Farside Investor data shows. This is substantially more than the next-biggest fund, Fidelity’s FBTC, with its $11.923 billion in cumulative inflows.  

IBIT is, however, on a 3-day inflows streak amid a broader crypto market slump. Its biggest outflows were seen on Friday, when investors pulled $463.1 million from the fund. Other spot BTC ETFs are on 3-day outflow streaks as well, namely Fidelity’s FBTC and Grayscale’s GBTC.

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