Harvard Buys Bitcoin

Harvard’s investment arm has quietly taken a big step into crypto, buying over $116 million worth of BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF.

Harvard Management Company, which oversees the university’s massive $53 billion endowment, revealed in a recent SEC filing that it owns about 1.9 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). At current prices, that’s roughly $116 million, making Bitcoin the school’s fifth-largest holding—even ahead of big names like Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas described the move as “pretty sizable,” noting that university endowments tend to be conservative and slow to embrace ETFs, especially those tied to cryptocurrency. From Harvard’s perspective, the amount might be relatively small compared to its total portfolio, but it still sends a strong signal that digital assets are gaining a place in traditional investment strategies.

BlackRock’s IBIT has grown at a rapid pace, attracting tens of billions of dollars in assets since launch. With Harvard now among its biggest investors, it’s another sign that Bitcoin is moving further into the financial mainstream.