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The Harvard Management Company (HMC), which is in charge of Harvard University’s $56.9 billion endowment, has quietly changed how it invests in digital assets. HMC filed a Form 13F with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the fourth quarter of 2025. In it, they said that they had sold a large part of their stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and bought a new stake in BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA).
HMC had about $265.8 million in IBIT on December 31, 2025, down from $442.9 million at the end of Q3. The dollar value went down by 40%, which is the same as the number of shares going down by 21%, from about 6.8 million to 5.4 million. This happened when Bitcoin was trading significantly below its July 2025 peak of over $120,000. The average price in the fourth quarter was much lower than it had been earlier in the year. This means that the dollar-weighted drop shows both price drops and active selling.
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HMC also started a new investment in ETHA, buying more than 3.8 million shares worth over $87 million at the end of the quarter. The addition lets the endowment directly invest in Ether for the first time through a spot ETF. At the end of 2025, the two BlackRock crypto products made up about 0.62% of the endowment’s total assets under management.
There was a lot of volatility in both assets when the portfolio changes were made. Bitcoin went down from more than $120,000 in the middle of 2025 to the mid-$60,000 area by early February 2026. At the time of writing, Ether had dropped from more over $4,000 to about $1,984. The changes reflect a tactical adjustment rather than a sweeping retreat from digital assets: HMC decreased its largest crypto holding during a drop but simultaneously built exposure to the second-largest coin.
In a wider portfolio context
HMC made a number of other important modifications in the fourth quarter, in addition to crypto. The endowment bought around $100 million in Alphabet (Google’s parent) stock and sold about $80 million worth of Amazon stock. These changes show that the technology sector is still changing, with managers seeming to prefer some large-cap firms over others as AI-driven growth stories and valuation resets become less clear.
Even though the percentage of crypto is small, it still has a lot of meaning. One of the biggest and most highly studied endowments in the world is Harvard’s. Its choice to keep major exposure to both Bitcoin and Ether through regulated spot ETFs, even after a big drop, shows that institutions still see digital assets as a way to diversify their portfolios.
Market Sentiment and Institutional Flows
Harvard’s actions fit in with what other institutions are doing in the U.S. spot crypto ETF market. Even if Bitcoin has dropped from its 2025 highs, spot Bitcoin ETFs have still had a lot of net inflows. BlackRock’s IBIT is still the best in its class, with more than $70 billion in assets under management and fees that have made it one of the company’s most profitable ETF launches ever.
Ether ETFs have been slowly but steadily growing. Ethereum’s position in decentralised finance, tokenised assets, and layer-2 scaling solutions is becoming more well-known, which is good for the category. HMC’s admission into ETHA shows how this story has changed: institutions are starting to see Ether not just as a way to hold value, but also as a way to get access to programmable blockchain infrastructure.
The endowment’s decisions also happen at a time when retail sentiment is dropping. For the past few weeks, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index has been in the “extreme fear” range, with ratings in the low 20s. But institutional demand, which is shown by ETF flows and the accumulation of corporate treasuries, has kept the market stable.
Harvard’s choice to cut back on Bitcoin exposure while boosting Ether seems more tactical than directional. The 21% drop in IBIT happened when prices were very low, which suggests that people were either taking profits or lowering their risk, not that they had completely lost faith. The endowment still sees long-term value in regulated crypto exposure, as seen by its simultaneous entry into ETHA. However, it is spreading its investments across the two largest assets by market capitalisation.
The endowment’s overall crypto investment is still small—less than 1% of total assets—which is in line with the conservative stance of most large university endowments. Still, it’s interesting that Harvard has any exposure at all. Many other schools are still on the sidelines because they are worried about volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and custodial issues. Harvard’s sustained use of BlackRock’s spot ETFs gives some credibility to the product structure and the asset class as a whole.
In the future, institutional flows will continue to be an important factor in keeping prices stable and helping them recover. Spot ETF inflows have always offered a structural bid during times of consolidation, and corporate treasuries have been hesitant to sell their holdings even when prices go down. Bitcoin and Ether might get a boost if macro conditions are better, such as clearer signals from the Federal Reserve about easing, less geopolitical tension, or a restored desire for risk.
For now, Harvard’s changes in the fourth quarter show that they are being careful while yet keeping a positive long-term outlook. The endowment isn’t going all in or all out; it’s not doing either. Instead, it is keeping a considerable amount of exposure while moving money between the two main digital assets dependent on how well they are doing and how much they are worth.
