The world's largest university endowment has just completed a textbook-level "buy high, sell low" round.

According to Fortune and the latest SEC 13F filings, Harvard Management Company (managing about $57 billion) reduced its holdings in the BlackRock Bitcoin Spot ETF (IBIT) by 43% in Q1 2026, leaving approximately $117 million. It also fully liquidated its holdings in the BlackRock Ethereum Spot ETF (ETHA), about $86.8 million. This investment was only recently established last quarter.
Let's reconstruct the timeline:
In Q2 2025, Harvard first bought IBIT, about $117 million. It continued to add to the position, reaching a peak market value of about $442 million in Q3, with IBIT once becoming Harvard’s largest disclosed single stock holding, surpassing Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon.
Then Bitcoin sharply declined from its all-time high of about $126k. Harvard reduced its holdings by 21% in Q4 2025, and another 43% in Q1 2026, two rounds of operations cutting the position by over 70% from the peak. The remaining $117 million is nearly the same as the initial position a year ago. This period experienced a full cycle of large additions, unrealized gains at the high, and continuous reductions.
Ethereum's position was even more straightforward. In Q4 2025, Harvard bought about $86.8 million worth of ETHA, at which time Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart revealed Harvard was ETHA’s largest new buyer. One quarter later, it was fully liquidated, during which ETH has fallen about 29% since the beginning of the year, almost certainly incurring a loss.
IBIT is no longer Harvard’s largest public stock holding. The latest filings show TSMC (about $232 million), SPDR Gold Trust (about $200 million), Alphabet, and Microsoft all rank ahead.
There’s also a noteworthy variable in timing. Harvard Management CEO Narvekar has told the board he plans to retire, possibly leaving office by the end of 2027. Narvekar is seen as the architect of Harvard’s crypto strategy, and with his departure, the crypto experiment that began in mid-2025 is facing liquidation.
In stark contrast, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala increased its IBIT holdings by 16% to $566 million, continuing to add for seven consecutive quarters.
Spot ETFs have successfully addressed the compliance channels for institutional entry into crypto assets, but clearly have not built confidence in long-term institutional holding of crypto assets.
The entry threshold has been lowered, but the threshold for holding remains unchanged.