Harvard Management Company kept its BlackRock Bitcoin ETF position unchanged during the second quarter after reducing the holding for two straight quarters. The investment manager reported 3,044,612 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust as of June 30. Those shares carried a value of about $101.4 million.
The share count matched Harvard’s March filing, although the position lost about $15.6 million in value during the quarter. This decline came from IBIT’s falling market price rather than additional share sales.
Harvard previously reported 6.81 million IBIT shares at the end of September 2025. It then lowered the position to 5.35 million shares during the fourth quarter. The manager cut the stake again during the first quarter of 2026. Its holdings fell to 3.04 million shares, representing a reduction of about 43%.
By June 30, that selling pattern had stopped. Still, the Form 13F does not explain Harvard’s investment reasoning or show whether its outlook on Bitcoin changed. Does keeping the same share count during a falling market signal greater institutional willingness to tolerate Bitcoin volatility?
The filing only records securities held at quarter-end. Therefore, it cannot establish whether Harvard retained the same exposure after June 30.
Harvard also reported $149.5 million in the iShares Gold Trust and $21.7 million in SPDR Gold Trust shares. Combined gold ETF exposure reached about $171.2 million. This amount exceeded Harvard’s $101.4 million IBIT position. As a result, gold-related products represented a larger disclosed allocation than Bitcoin at the quarter’s end.
Bitcoin remained Harvard’s only disclosed cryptocurrency ETF holding. The manager had previously held BlackRock’s spot Ether ETF but later exited that position. Harvard’s 13F listed 19 securities worth about $4.26 billion. IBIT represented roughly 2.4% of those disclosed holdings.
Still, the filing covers only part of Harvard University’s investment assets. The university manages an endowment of roughly $57 billion, including private funds and alternative structures outside 13F reporting.
Space Exploration Technologies ranked as Harvard’s largest disclosed position. This holding carried a value of about $2.21 billion at the end of June.
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Harvard was not alone in maintaining its Bitcoin ETF share count. Mubadala reported 14.72 million IBIT shares, unchanged from March, worth about $490.1 million. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council also kept 8.22 million IBIT shares. Its position carried a value of about $273.6 million at quarter-end.
Together, the two Abu Dhabi entities disclosed about $764 million in IBIT exposure. Their positions lost market value during the quarter, but neither reported selling shares. Large U.S. financial institutions followed different paths. Morgan Stanley reduced its reported IBIT holdings to about 16.5 million shares from roughly 17.3 million.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan increased its reported position to about 10.4 million IBIT shares from approximately 8.3 million. Bank filings require additional caution because reported securities may include client holdings or trading inventory. Form 13F filings also exclude short positions and do not reveal investment motives.
Harvard kept 3.04 million IBIT shares through the second quarter after two consecutive reductions, while its disclosed gold ETF allocation remained larger. Mubadala and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council also maintained their IBIT share counts, while Morgan Stanley reduced exposure and JPMorgan increased its reported position.