Harvard Liquidates Complete Ethereum Holdings Within Single Quarter
The prestigious university's endowment fund joins a growing list of prominent institutional investors selling off their ETH positions amid deteriorating market confidence throughout the current downturn.
According to the Q1 2026 filing submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Harvard Management Company—the organization responsible for overseeing Harvard University's endowment fund—divested its complete Ether (ETH) position following only a single quarter of ownership.
Based on the Q1 2026 SEC disclosure, the endowment has completely exited its $87 million position in BlackRock iShares Ethereum Trust exchange-traded fund (ETF) shares, which appeared in its holdings during Q4 2025.
During Q1 2026, Harvard additionally decreased its Bitcoin (BTC) exposure by selling approximately 2.3 million Bitcoin ETF shares. Despite this reduction, the endowment fund continues to maintain ownership of over 3 million shares in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, representing a value approaching $117 million.
This shift in portfolio allocation comes after a challenging period for ETH, which has experienced a decline exceeding 50% from its all-time high of approximately $5,000 achieved in August 2025, accompanied by multiple high-level exits from the Ethereum Foundation (EF), the entity responsible for managing the ecosystem.
Key personnel leave the Ethereum Foundation, as the organization receives flak
Two researchers employed by the EF, Julian Ma and Carl Beek, have recently made public announcements regarding their exits from the organization, pushing the cumulative number of individuals departing in 2026 to a total of eight.
In April, Josh Stark, who served as a long-standing researcher and previously held the position of project manager at the Foundation, also departed from the organization. These exits are part of a broader pattern of organizational restructuring and leadership transitions at the EF that commenced during January 2025.
During March, the EF released a formal mandate document detailing its objectives and emphasizing its commitment to maintaining decentralization, privacy, open-source software code and censorship resistance.
The mandate and the broader positioning of the organization, however, generated divided opinions within the crypto community.
According to journalist Laura Shin, while the fundamental principles articulated in the EF's mandate are "great" and "worth fighting for," the organization should simultaneously prioritize tokeneomics and work toward increasing the value of its native asset, she noted.
"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."
Laura Shin, journalist