Harvard University loses $150 million in cryptocurrency! Has completely liquidated Ethereum and significantly reduced its Bitcoin ETF positions

Author: Zhou, ChainCatcher
Last weekend, Harvard Management Company (HMC) submitted its latest 13F holdings report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing a further 43% reduction in its position in BlackRock's Bitcoin spot ETF (IBIT) compared to the previous quarter, while its holdings in the Ethereum ETF (ETHA) were completely liquidated.

In just two quarters, Harvard's publicly disclosed holdings in crypto assets have dropped from a peak of $443 million to approximately $117 million. As one of the top institutions managing the largest university endowment fund globally, this move has raised market skepticism: can even top talent escape the trap of buying high and selling low?

In fact, Harvard's connection to cryptocurrency goes far beyond this. As early as 2018, several Ivy League endowment funds showed strong interest in blockchain technology through venture capital funds focused on cryptocurrency. Reports indicate that Harvard University, Yale University, Brown University, and the University of Michigan began quietly purchasing Bitcoin through exchanges like Coinbase around 2019.

HMC first publicly disclosed its holdings in the second quarter of 2025. According to the 13F filing submitted in August of that year, HMC held approximately 1.9 million shares of IBIT, valued at about $117 million, while simultaneously building a position in a gold ETF (GLD) worth approximately $102 million.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan interpreted this series of moves as a "devaluation hedge trade," simultaneously betting on Bitcoin and gold to counter the risks of global currency overissuance. Consequently, IBIT became Harvard's fifth-largest publicly disclosed holding, surpassing its holdings in Google parent company Alphabet.

Entering the third quarter, HMC significantly increased its position. As of September 30, 2025, its holdings in IBIT expanded to approximately 6.81 million shares, valued at about $443 million, representing a quarter-over-quarter increase of over 257%. IBIT surpassed Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia to become the largest single holding in HMC's publicly disclosed portfolio, accounting for about 20% of its publicly disclosed U.S. stock portfolio.

At that time, facing continuously declining return expectations for traditional assets, several university endowment funds were quietly adjusting their investment strategies.

Kim Lew, CEO of Columbia Investment Management Company, stated that the expected returns and alpha yields of traditional asset classes would be compressed, forcing institutions to venture further along the risk curve. Carlos Rangel of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation bluntly remarked that if an 8% return could not be achieved, the traditional foundation model would be difficult to sustain.

Meanwhile, even Harvard's own economics professors were becoming restless. In August 2025, former IMF Chief Economist and Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff publicly reflected on his prediction error from 2018—he had forecasted that Bitcoin was more likely to drop to $100 than reach $100,000 within ten years, while Bitcoin's price had already surpassed $113,000, increasing more than tenfold since then.

Rogoff admitted that he was "overly optimistic about the U.S. establishing reasonable cryptocurrency regulations" and underestimated the demand support for Bitcoin in the global underground economy. The public acknowledgment of error by a prominent academic figure provided additional emotional backing for this wave of institutional buying. Bitcoin subsequently approached a historical peak of $126,000 in October 2025.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, after the market peaked and began to decline, HMC adjusted its holdings. The position in IBIT decreased by approximately 21%, falling to about 5.35 million shares, valued at approximately $266 million. At the same time, BlackRock's Ethereum spot ETF (ETHA) appeared in the report for the first time, with holdings of approximately 3.87 million shares, valued at about $86.8 million.

According to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, during this quarter, hedge funds were concentrated on selling Ethereum ETFs due to collapsing returns from basis trading, making them the largest net sellers of the season. Harvard, however, entered the market against the trend during this time window, becoming the largest new buyer of Ethereum ETFs for the quarter.

The latest disclosed holdings for the first quarter of 2026 show that ETHA, which had just been established for less than a quarter, was completely liquidated. Meanwhile, HMC significantly reduced its holdings in IBIT by about 43%, leaving approximately 3.04 million shares, valued at about $117 million. IBIT has also fallen out of Harvard's top five holdings, surpassed by TSMC, Alphabet, Microsoft, and SPDR Gold Trust.

According to well-known crypto KOL Chen Jian, HMC's average purchase price for IBIT was around $110,000, while the average selling price was about $80,000, resulting in a loss of approximately 28%, with Bitcoin accounting for over $100 million in paper losses. For Ethereum, the average purchase price for ETHA was about $4,000, and it had dropped to around $2,600 at liquidation, with estimated quarterly losses exceeding $30 million (-35%). In total, this round of crypto operations is suspected to have incurred losses exceeding $150 million.

Was this a case of chasing highs and cutting losses, or a routine rebalancing by institutions?

One perspective suggests that HMC completed its largest scale increase in holdings when Bitcoin was nearing historical highs, then sold off more as prices fell, following a pattern of buying high and selling low. The Ethereum position was even liquidated in less than a quarter, effectively capturing the entire downturn. This is typical behavior of chasing highs and cutting losses.

Another viewpoint points out that by the end of the third quarter, IBIT already accounted for 20% of HMC's publicly disclosed portfolio, indicating a significantly high concentration. The subsequent reduction was a necessary risk management action, especially since HMC still retained about $117 million in IBIT and had not completely exited.

However, this reduction in holdings must also consider the current pressures Harvard is facing.

In October of last year, Harvard's financial report for the fiscal year 2025 revealed that due to the Trump administration halting nearly all federal research funding in the spring, Harvard incurred an operating loss of $113 million for the year, with total revenue of $6.7 billion. This was the first budget deficit since the pandemic. The deficit accounted for 1.7% of total revenue, contrasting sharply with the $45 million surplus in 2024.

The endowment fund contributes about 37% of Harvard's operating revenue, with expenditures supporting approximately $2.5 billion for the fiscal year 2025. However, 80% of these funds are restricted by donor purposes and cannot be freely allocated.

At the same time, the Republican tax bill that took effect in July 2025 significantly raised the maximum tax rate on endowment funds from 1.4% to 8%, with Harvard estimating an additional annual tax burden of about $300 million as a result.

Under this pressure, the asset structure itself determines where cuts are most easily made.

In Harvard's endowment fund, private equity accounts for about 41%, and hedge funds about 31%. These types of assets have long lock-up periods and high costs for discounted sales. IBIT and ETHA, as publicly traded ETFs that can be traded intraday, have the strongest liquidity and the lowest monetization costs, making them the primary targets for adjustment.

Additionally, HMC's current CEO N.P. Narvekar has revealed plans to retire around 2027 and is currently discussing succession arrangements with the board. In an environment where financial pressure, political uncertainty, and leadership transitions are overlapping, holding large, high-volatility crypto positions has become an additional reputational risk.

In contrast to Harvard's retreat, other institutions have made distinctly different choices. Among them, the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala continued to increase its holdings in IBIT by about 16% in Q1 2026, raising its position to approximately $566 million, marking its fifth consecutive quarter of increasing its Bitcoin ETF holdings.

As another university endowment fund, Dartmouth maintained its IBIT holdings while switching its Ethereum ETF to a staking version and adding about $3.67 million in Bitwise Solana Staking ETF, becoming one of the first U.S. university endowment funds to extend its crypto allocation beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Brown University maintained its 212,500 shares of IBIT, while Emory University exited a small position in IBIT and instead increased its holdings in Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust.

Overall, Harvard's recent actions are the result of the interplay between financial pressure, liquidity needs, and risk budgeting, making it difficult to simply categorize them as chasing highs and cutting losses.

When the world's top university endowment funds enter the crypto market, they do not do so with a crypto-native belief but rather with the logic of Wall Street's risk balance sheet. While crypto ETF products have indeed provided an entry point for institutions, they have also brought institutional selling pressure during times of risk contraction.