Harvard Management Company Sells All Ether Holdings, Reduces Bitcoin Exposure
Quick Look
- Harvard Management Company has sold all its Ether holdings, including $87 million in an Ethereum ETF, and reduced its Bitcoin ETF shares.
- This follows a turbulent year for ETH and departures from the Ethereum Foundation.
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Why It Matters
Harvard Management Company, which manages Harvard University's endowment, has divested its Ether holdings and reduced its Bitcoin exposure, according to its Q1 2026 SEC filing. This move comes amid a significant price drop for ETH and several high-profile departures from the Ethereum Foundation.
Harvard Management Company, the entity that manages Harvard University’s endowment fund, sold all of its Ether (ETH) holdings after just one quarter, according to its Q1 2026 United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
The endowment no longer holds the $87 million in BlackRock iShares Ethereum Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares, which it held in Q4 2025, according to its Q1 2026 SEC filing.
Harvard also reduced its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) in Q1 2026, offloading about 2.3 million Bitcoin ETF shares. The endowment fund still holds more than 3 million shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, valued at nearly $117 million.
Harvard's asset holdings as of Q1 2026. Source: SEC
The change in holdings follows a turbulent year for ETH, which has fallen by over 50% from the all-time high of nearly $5,000 reached in August 2025, and several high-profile departures at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the organization that oversees the ecosystem.
Related: Dartmouth endowment invests in Solana ETF, holds $14M in crypto exposure
Key personnel leave the Ethereum Foundation, as the organization receives flak
Julian Ma and Carl Beek, two researchers at the EF, recently announced their departure from the organization, bringing the total number of departures in 2026 to eight.
Josh Stark, a longtime researcher and former project manager at the Foundation, also left the organization in April. The departures follow several organizational and leadership changes at the EF, which began in January 2025.
Source: Josh Stark
In March, the EF published a mandate outlining its goals and its focus on upholding decentralization, privacy, open-source software code and censorship resistance.
However, the mandate and the overall stance of the organization were met with mixed reactions from the crypto community.
The core pillars outlined in the EF’s mandate are “great” and “worth fighting for,” according to journalist Laura Shin, but the EF should also focus on tokeneomics and raising the price of its native asset, she added.
“The Ethereum Foundation seems to want to sit back on its laurels and act above it all when all its competitors are all getting down and dirty on the field to gain market share,” Shin said.
Open Questions
- What are the specific reasons for the departures at the Ethereum Foundation?
- Will other institutional investors follow Harvard's lead in divesting Ether?
- What is the long-term strategy of the Ethereum Foundation regarding market share and tokenomics?
- What is the total value of Harvard's remaining crypto holdings?
