Harvard Management Company held its iShares Bitcoin Trust position steady during the second quarter of 2026, ending a two-quarter run of reductions while allowing gold-backed exchange-traded funds to take a larger place in its disclosed U.S. securities portfolio.
A Form 13F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows Harvard’s investment manager owned 3,044,612 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, on June 30. The share count was unchanged from March 31, although the position’s reported value declined to $101.4 million from roughly $117 million as IBIT’s market price fell during the quarter.
Harvard had previously reduced the holding substantially. Its disclosures show 6,813,612 IBIT shares at the end of September 2025, followed by 5,353,612 shares at the end of December and 3,044,612 at the end of March 2026. Keeping the position flat in the latest quarter suggests the endowment manager did not use the period’s price weakness to continue cutting exposure, but it also did not resume buying.
Gold ETFs outweigh Harvard’s disclosed bitcoin fund stake
Gold-linked ETFs held a larger reported value than IBIT in Harvard’s latest filing. Harvard Management Company listed $149.5 million in the iShares Gold Trust and $21.7 million in the SPDR Gold Trust, bringing its combined disclosed gold ETF exposure to $171.2 million.
That figure was about 69% greater than the value of its IBIT position at quarter-end. The comparison reflects only securities required to appear on the 13F, rather than Harvard University’s complete endowment portfolio, which has been described as roughly $57 billion.
IBIT ranked 11th among the 19 positions disclosed by Harvard Management Company and accounted for 2.4% of the filing’s $4.26 billion total value. Form 13F filings cover certain U.S.-listed securities and related options held by institutional managers, leaving out many assets that can be held through private funds, international vehicles, derivatives, cash, bonds, and other structures.
Harvard also fully exited a previously disclosed spot Ethereum ETF position valued at $86.8 million. No Ethereum ETF holding appeared in the June filing, removing a position that had placed the endowment among the more visible university-linked holders of crypto funds.
The filing was dominated by Space Exploration Technologies, listed as SPCX, with 12,935,100 shares valued at $2.21 billion. That represented about 52% of the reported portfolio. The company listed on Nasdaq in June and disclosed ownership of 18,712 bitcoin in its registration statement, giving Harvard’s largest disclosed equity position an indirect connection to bitcoin as well.
Other institutions split between holding, adding and reducing IBIT
Harvard’s decision to maintain its IBIT share count matched disclosures from several other large institutions, though their overall activity was far from uniform.
Mubadala Investment Company, one of Abu Dhabi’s state-backed funds, reported 14,721,917 IBIT shares worth $490.1 million at June 30, unchanged from March 31. IBIT was its second-largest reported position. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council also reported no change in its IBIT share count, holding 8,218,712 shares valued at $273.6 million, its largest disclosed holding.
Together, the two Abu Dhabi entities held about $764 million in IBIT at the end of June, according to their SEC filings. That was roughly $118 million below their combined March valuation despite unchanged share counts, illustrating how quarterly 13F values can move sharply even when managers do not trade.
Mubadala first disclosed IBIT ownership at the end of 2024 and has increased its share count in three of the past six quarters. The June filing indicates it retained that larger allocation through a weaker period for bitcoin-linked funds rather than reducing exposure alongside the falling price.
Morgan Stanley took a different approach. Its filing reported approximately 16.5 million IBIT shares worth $548.6 million, down from 17.3 million shares valued at $663.3 million at the end of March. The bank’s reported IBIT share count declined 4.5%, while the position’s value fell 17.3%.
Morgan Stanley also listed 2.57 million shares of the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, or MSBT, worth $43.3 million. MSBT began trading in April, giving the firm a second reported vehicle for bitcoin fund exposure.
JPMorgan increased its IBIT position to roughly 10.4 million shares from 8.3 million in the prior quarter, according to its 13F. The same filing showed that the bank more than quadrupled its stake in BlackRock’s ether ETF, with that holding valued at about $14.3 million at quarter-end.
Tudor Investment Corporation added 109,446 IBIT shares, ending the quarter with 688,529 shares worth $22.9 million. Its filing also showed IBIT put options with an underlying value of $23.8 million and call options valued at $4.93 million, a structure consistent with using options to manage downside risk or position around volatility.
Dartmouth College reported no changes in its crypto ETF share counts. The combined value of its IBIT, Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF, and Bitwise Solana Staking ETF positions fell to $12.4 million from $14.6 million during the quarter, reflecting market-price changes rather than sales.
Quarterly disclosures offer a delayed view of institutional positioning
The filings arrive after a difficult stretch for bitcoin. Bitcoin traded near $63,000, down almost 30% year-to-date and roughly half its reported October 2025 peak above $126,000. IBIT held about $47.35 billion in net assets as of Aug. 13.
The mixed institutional activity does not establish a single direction for large managers. Harvard and the Abu Dhabi funds held their share counts steady, JPMorgan added shares, Morgan Stanley reduced its reported stake, and Tudor expanded its position while holding options on both sides of the trade.
These differences also underscore the limits of using 13F filings as a real-time trading signal. Managers file after quarter-end, report long holdings rather than short positions, and may be reporting client assets, market-making inventory, or strategies managed on behalf of others rather than a firm’s own balance-sheet view.
For Harvard, the latest filing provides a clearer picture: its sharp reductions in IBIT stopped in the second quarter, but its disclosed allocation to gold ETFs remained materially larger, while its Ethereum ETF exposure disappeared entirely.
See how institutional flows shape BTC and gold markets in 2026—read this detailed ETF impact breakdown next.
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