{shortcode-7ef749e4b7b80bd84c95205053b9fb1e33a27fef}
Harvard Management Company dramatically increased its investment in an exchange trade fund tracking the value of Bitcoin in the third quarter of 2025, making the iShares Bitcoin Trust its largest publicly disclosed U.S. equity holding as the University’s portfolio also saw jumps in gold and consumer-facing industries.
HMC raised its stake in the iShares Bitcoin Trust by 258 percent, increasing the investment’s reported value from $116.7 million to $442.9 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. The firm’s stake in an ETF tracking the value of gold also doubled, with Harvard’s position in the SPDR Gold Trust increasing from $101.5 million to $235.1 million.
SPDR Gold Trust is backed by physical gold stored in London vaults while iShares Bitcoin Trust, holds Bitcoin on behalf of shareholders. Continuing a trend from last quarter, HMC’s venture into Bitcoin and gold ETFs allow it to gain exposure to the commodities without direct ownership.
Harvard also introduced a $29.3 million stake in Flutter Entertainment during the third quarter.
Flutter operates FanDuel, the sports betting and gaming platform that has rapidly expanded in the U.S. market after the Supreme Court legalized sports betting across the country in 2018.
HMC also opened a $16.8 million position in Klarna Group, the Swedish payments company known for its “buy now, pay later” service. Another major addition was Zillow, the online real-estate marketplace, where the endowment added a position worth $73.4 million.
Several of the University’s major technology holdings, including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Booking Holdings, remained unchanged over the quarter. Nvidia was the only large tech position reduced, with HMC cutting its stake by 12 percent and pairing the move with a new $59.2 million investment in Nvidia’s long-term manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Economist and Stanford finance professor Joshua D. Rauh said the continued trend of investments in Bitcoin and gold could indicate that HMC is attempting to hedge against macroeconomic headwinds to the U.S. dollar.
“Investors often seem to view both bitcoin and gold as hedges against a collapse of the international monetary system in general, and against a loss of faith in the US dollar in particular,” Rauh wrote. “However, the extent to which either actually protects investors from these forces is uncertain and scenario-dependent.”
“Gold has traditionally performed well in environments with large uncertainty about geopolitics, but while its properties make it a long-term store of value, it doesn’t necessarily perform well when inflation increases,” Rauh added. “Bitcoin’s intrinsic characteristics make it still rather speculative today, and it certainly hasn’t proven itself as a hedge against inflation or market volatility, but allocating a small part of the portfolio to it provides diversification in case its role in the global economy increases.”
Stanfard finance professor Darrell Duffie said the increase in Bitcoin in particular might represent the firm trying to get ahead of “the speculative urges of other investors.”
“I was surprised to learn that Harvard Management Company significantly increased its position in Bitcoin,” Duffie wrote. “Bitcoin does not pay dividends and has limited uses as a payment instrument.”
HMC spokesperson Patrick S. McKiernan declined to comment on the endowment’s investment strategy.
Other shifts by HMC in the third quarter included a significant reduction in Broadcom, nearly halving the stake and lowering its value from $53.1 million to $33 million, and a steep, 85 percent cut of its investment in Maze Therapeutics.
Notably, HMC’s public disclosures only represent a sliver — 14 percent in the last fiscal year — of the University’s total portfolio. The remaining is allocated to a series of private assets — including 41 percent to private equity and 31 percent to hedge funds in FY25— that do not fall under the SEC’s quarterly reporting requirements.
Currently HMC holds 18 public stocks, relegating the majority of its investments to external managers and reducing the fund’s transparency.
“Since Harvard does most of its investing via external managers and pooled or commingled vehicles, we don’t see the fund’s complete exposures,” Rauh wrote.
“In general, stakeholders of Harvard should be interested in knowing more about that part of the portfolio we don’t see in the 13-F,”he added.
—Staff writer Avani B. Rai can be reached at avani.rai@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @avaniiiirai.
—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.
