Several large institutional holders reported unchanged Bitcoin ETF positions in the second quarter, a pattern that emerged across university endowments and sovereign wealth funds even as Bitcoin fell roughly 30% for the year.
Harvard Management Company was among them. Its August 14 SEC filing showed 3,044,612 iShares Bitcoin Trust shares worth $101.4 million as of June 30, identical to the share count from March 31. The $15.6 million decline in the position's reported value came from IBIT's lower quarter-end price rather than additional selling.
Harvard's retreat from IBIT and what stopped it
The Q2 pause followed a steep retreat. Harvard built its IBIT position to a peak of $442.8 million by the end of the third quarter of 2025, with 6,813,612 shares on hand. It then cut that stake 21% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and sold another 43% of what remained during the first quarter of 2026. Harvard first purchased IBIT in the second quarter of 2025.
Harvard also exited its $86.8 million position in BlackRock's spot Ethereum ETF during the first quarter and did not rebuild that exposure. The latest filing carries no Ethereum ETF holdings.
IBIT ranked eleventh among Harvard's 19 disclosed positions and represented 2.4% of the $4.26 billion portfolio reported in its 13F. Harvard's full endowment sits at roughly $57 billion, with most of it held in private funds outside the SEC reporting requirement.
Gold now sits above Bitcoin in Harvard's disclosed portfolio
That same filing showed $149.5 million in the iShares Gold Trust and $21.7 million in the SPDR Gold Trust, putting Harvard's gold-linked product exposure at $171.2 million. That figure exceeds the $101.4 million IBIT position. The comparison applies only to securities held in Form 13F and does not reflect the full endowment.
SpaceX held the top position at $2.21 billion, about 52% of the total disclosed portfolio. The company disclosed 18,712 bitcoin in its registration statement after its Nasdaq listing in June.
Abu Dhabi funds absorb paper losses without trimming
Two Abu Dhabi investment entities made no changes to their reported IBIT share counts during the quarter. Mubadala Investment Company held 14,721,917 shares worth $490.1 million at June 30, the same count as March 31. IBIT remained Mubadala's second-largest disclosed 13F position. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council separately reported 8,218,712 shares worth $273.6 million, also unchanged, with IBIT as its largest reported holding.
Bitcoin traded near $63,000 when the filings became public, down roughly 30% for the year and about 50% below the October 2025 peak above $126,000.
Gunel Ismayilova
Disclaimer: All materials on this site are for informational purposes only. None of the material should be interpreted as investment advice. Please note that, despite the nature of much of the material created and hosted on this website, HODL FM operates as a media and informational platform, not a provider of financial advisory services. The opinions of authors and other contributors are their own and should not be taken as financial advice. If you require advice, HODL FM strongly recommends contacting a qualified industry professional.
