Harvard Bets Big on Bitcoin & Gold – Like a Toff at a Casino! 🎩💰

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Bitcoin, that digital darling of the financial world, has been strutting about lately like a peacock at a garden party, basking in the adoration of institutional investors. And who should join this merry band of crypto enthusiasts but Harvard University-yes, the Harvard, that venerable institution where brains and bank balances are equally well-endowed.

Back in August, Harvard casually dropped the bombshell that it had tucked away a tidy $117 million in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF like a chap slipping a fiver into his waistcoat pocket. But lo and behold, by September, the old alma mater had gone full Scrooge McDuck, nearly tripling its BTC holdings to a whopping $443 million. One can only assume the university bursar has been mainlining espresso and yelling “YOLO” into a Bloomberg terminal.

BlackRock’s IBIT: Harvard’s New Favourite Toy (Until the Next Shiny Thing)

According to its latest filing-which reads less like a financial disclosure and more like a shopping list for the 1%-Harvard now owns 6,813,612 shares of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust. That’s enough Bitcoin ETF to choke a stable of unicorns, though admittedly, it’s still just a drop in Harvard’s $57 billion endowment ocean. Still, it’s enough to make them the 16th-largest IBIT holder, which is rather like being the 16th-best-dressed person at Ascot-impressive, but nobody’s handing out trophies.

Not content with merely betting on digital pixie dust, Harvard also boosted its gold holdings, because apparently, diversification is for mortals who don’t have ivy-covered money printers. The university now owns $235 million worth of SPDR Gold Trust shares, presumably to balance out the existential dread of owning an asset that could vanish if someone misplaces a USB stick.

Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas, ever the wordsmith, summed it up thus on X (formerly Twitter, before Elon Musk turned it into a digital circus):

It’s super rare/difficult to get an endowment to bite on an ETF-esp a Harvard or Yale, it’s as good a validation as an ETF can get. That said, half a billion is a mere 1% of total endowment. Big enough to rank 16th among IBIT holders tho.

(Translation: “Even the posh kids are gambling now. How quaint.”)

BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF: The Hot Potato Nobody Wants Right Now 🔥🥔

Alas, not all is sunshine and caviar in ETF-land. Recent weeks have seen investor enthusiasm wane faster than a British summer. Last week alone, Bitcoin ETFs suffered a net outflow of $1.1 billion, with BlackRock’s IBIT leading the retreat like a butler fleeing a tea trolley disaster.

Friday was particularly brutal, with $463.1 million fleeing the fund like aristocrats from a tax audit. Still, IBIT remains the king of the Bitcoin ETF hill, with assets under management worth roughly $74.98 billion-or, as we like to call it, “enough to buy a small country (or at least a decent-sized yacht).”

Bitcoin price chart looking like a rollercoaster designed by a caffeinated squirrel

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2025-11-16 20:15