Harvard Stops Cutting Bitcoin ETF Stake While Holding $2.2 Billion in SpaceX

TLDR

• Harvard’s endowment kept its BlackRock IBIT bitcoin ETF stake unchanged in Q2 2026 at 3,044,612 shares worth $101.4 million, ending two quarters of selling
• Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds Mubadala and ADIC held a combined $764 million in IBIT, with no share count changes
• JPMorgan increased its IBIT position to 10.4 million shares while Morgan Stanley trimmed its holdings by 4.5%
• Tudor Investment Corporation, founded by Paul Tudor Jones, added to its IBIT position, now holding 688,529 shares worth $22.9 million
• Harvard now holds more in gold-related products ($171.2 million) than in bitcoin funds, and its largest holding is a $2.2 billion stake in SpaceX

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Harvard University’s endowment stopped selling shares in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust in the second quarter of 2026. The fund held 3,044,612 shares worth $101.4 million as of June 30, the same share count as the prior quarter.

JUST IN: Harvard PAUSED its Bitcoin ETF selling in Q2, holding 3.04 million BlackRock $IBIT shares worth $101.4 million after cutting the position for two straight quarters.

Its disclosed gold holdings totaled $171.2 million, while it maintained no Ethereum ETF exposure. $SPCX… pic.twitter.com/fwpweZdBqs

— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) August 16, 2026

This ended two straight quarters of cuts. Harvard had trimmed the position 21% in Q4 2025 and another 43% in Q1 2026. The drop in dollar value from the prior quarter reflected a lower bitcoin price, not fewer shares.

Harvard has not added to any Ethereum position. The endowment fully exited its BlackRock spot Ethereum ETF earlier this year and has not returned to that market.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $63,000, down nearly 30% year-to-date. That puts it at roughly half its October 2025 peak above $126,000.

Harvard Now Holds More Gold Than Bitcoin

Harvard’s endowment now holds $171.2 million in gold-related products compared to $101.4 million in its bitcoin fund. It holds $149.5 million in the iShares Gold Trust and $21.7 million in the SPDR Gold Trust.

IBIT ranked 11th in Harvard’s disclosed portfolio and made up 2.4% of its $4.26 billion in reported holdings. The full endowment is worth around $57 billion, but most of it sits in private funds not captured by 13F filings.

Harvard’s largest disclosed holding is SpaceX, worth $2.21 billion or 52% of total reported holdings. The company went public in June at $135 per share, valuing it at around $1.8 trillion. Harvard had held a pre-IPO position for years before the listing converted it into publicly traded shares.

Dartmouth College also reported no changes to its crypto ETF holdings. The combined value of its positions in IBIT, a Grayscale Ethereum staking fund, and a Bitwise Solana fund fell from $14.6 million to $12.4 million, due to price moves rather than share changes.

Banks and Funds Shift Their IBIT Positions

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala held 14.7 million IBIT shares worth $490.1 million, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Council held 8.2 million shares worth $273.6 million. Neither fund changed its share count.

JPMorgan raised its IBIT stake from 8.3 million to 10.4 million shares and more than quadrupled its position in BlackRock’s ether ETF. Morgan Stanley trimmed its IBIT holdings by 4.5% to roughly 16.5 million shares. The bank also disclosed 2.57 million shares in its own Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust.

Tudor Investment Corporation added 109,446 shares in the quarter, bringing its total to 688,529 IBIT shares worth $22.9 million. The fund also held IBIT put options with an underlying value of $23.8 million.

BlackRock’s IBIT held about $47.35 billion in net assets as of August 13. IBIT now has 1,500 institutional holders on record according to its 13F filings list.