American universities have strengthened their positions in bitcoin funds.

# American universities have increased their positions in Bitcoin funds

Some of the most prestigious educational institutions in America - Harvard and Brown University - reported purchases of bitcoin through ETF.

The Harvard Management Company, which manages Harvard's endowment fund, reported in its quarterly SEC filing about the acquisition of shares in BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) for $116 million.

As of July 30, the organization held about 1.9 million IBIT. The purchased bitcoin ETFs in monetary terms matched, and in some cases even surpassed other positions of the university — Nvidia ($104 million), Meta ($120 million), Amazon ($234 million), and Microsoft ($310 million).

Harvard Management Company portfolio. Source: sec.gov. As a result, Harvard Management Company became the 29th largest holder of IBIT shares among 1300 investors.

Brown University also reported owning 212,500 IBIT, which were valued at $13 million at the time of filing. The educational institution more than doubled its Bitcoin ETF holdings over the quarter - at the end of March, the figure stood at 105,000 shares.

Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas noted that this is a large volume in terms of ETF, but "microscopic" in the context of Harvard.

COLLEGE: Harvard and Brown have bought $IBIT. Harvard is pretty sizable too, the 29th biggest holder out 1,300 holders. IMO Endowments are the hardest institution to hook, they rarely bite on ETFs.. h/t @TheBlock__ pic.twitter.com/M0LgfdRvnj

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) August 8, 2025

"Moreover, we do not know if they are making larger trades or arbitrage with these assets. At the same time, I tell you that [American] endowments are clearly against ETFs (too much imitation of the Yale model)," added the expert.

On August 8, the segment of spot American Bitcoin ETFs recorded a third consecutive day of inflows, adding $403 million. Of this, nearly $360 million was attributed to IBIT.

Source: SoSoValue. The net inflow for the past trading week amounted to $246 million.

As a reminder, since the beginning of the year, corporate treasuries and funds have purchased 371,111 BTC, which is 3.75 times the amount mined by miners during the same period.