Harvard University triples stake in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, filing shows

Harvard University boosted its investment in BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) by over 250% in the third quarter after the Ivy League school first bought into the fund earlier this year.

Harvard Management Company, the business that manages the university’s $57 billion endowment fund, reported in a regulatory filing on Friday that it held over 6.8 million shares in the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) worth $442.8 million as of Sept. 30.

The university disclosed in August that it had a position IBIT for the first time, holding around 1.9 million shares then worth $116.6 million.

“Super rare” for a university to buy ETF

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said on Friday that it is “super rare/difficult to get an endowment to bite on an ETF.”

“It’s as good a validation as an ETF can get,” he added, but noted Harvard’s IBIT investment was “a mere 1% of total endowment.”

IBIT was Harvard’s largest investment on its filing and was its “biggest position increase in Q3,” now ranking it as the 16th-largest holder of the ETF, according to Balchunas.

Source: Eric Balchunas

Balchunas said in August after Harvard’s initial IBIT buy that endowments “are notably anti-ETF” and the “hardest institution to hook” when it comes to ETFs.

Harvard increases gold, tech exposure

The remainder of Harvard’s investments were primarily in major US technology companies, including Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

The university also bought a new $16.8 million position in the buy-now, pay-later fintech Klarna and $59.1 million worth of shares in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Harvard also nearly doubled its exposure to gold, boosting its share ownership in the gold-backed ETF, SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), to 661,391 shares worth $235.1 million, up from its 333,000 share holdings in August.

SoSoValue shows Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs saw net outflows of $1.11 billion in the trading week ending on Friday, as the price of Bitcoin fell below $100,000.

Bitcoin is now trading under $95,000 after falling to a low of $93,029 in the past 24 hours, which briefly erased the gains it had made so far this year.