Ivy League Money Flows Into Bitcoin And Ethereum: Dartmouth’s Bold IBIT And ETH Mini Bet
An Ivy League endowment just placed its chips on crypto's biggest names.
The Smart Money Move
Dartmouth College's investment arm disclosed fresh stakes in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and a Micro Ethereum Futures ETF. The move signals a quiet but significant shift—institutional capital isn't just watching from the sidelines anymore.
Reading Between The Lines
Endowments manage money for the long haul. Their playbook avoids hype and chases durable value. Choosing regulated ETF products over direct crypto custody reveals their strategy: exposure without operational headaches. It's a hedge against traditional finance's creeping obsolescence—and a jab at the slow-moving dinosaurs still debating whether digital assets are 'real.'
Why This Stings For Wall Street
While Ivy League portfolios quietly diversify, some legacy funds remain stuck analyzing yield curves from the last century. Dartmouth's allocation may be modest, but its symbolism is massive. It legitimizes the asset class for every pension fund and institution still on the fence.
The message is clear: the future of finance isn't being built in old bank vaults—it's being coded, staked, and traded in the open. And now, the smartest money in the room is buying in.
Dartmouth’s Endowment Adds Bitcoin And Ethereum
Crypto market observers flagged the disclosure immediately. MacroScope, an analyst account that tracks institutional positioning, framed the filing as a meaningful signal from the endowment complex: “Very important filing today. In a 13F, Dartmouth College reported owning 201,531 shares of IBIT as of December 31, valued over $10 million. It also reported owning 178,148 shares of Grayscale Ethereum Mini valued at $4.9 million.”
The SEC filing provides the precise marks. Dartmouth’s Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust stake was listed at $4,998,833 for 178,148 shares at quarter-end, placing the combined bitcoin and Ethereum allocations at roughly $15.0 million of reported 13F holdings.
In the context of Dartmouth’s disclosed 13F portfolio, crypto remains a slice rather than a core. The filing’s summary page lists a “Form 13F Information Table Value Total” of $393,306,686 across nine positions. On that math, IBIT represents about 2.5% of the reported book, with the Ethereum Mini position adding roughly 1.3%.
The rest of the holdings read like a traditional endowment liquid sleeve. Dartmouth’s largest position was SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust at $227,897,664, alongside sizable allocations to emerging markets (iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets at $50,043,811), a quality-factor ETF (GMO US Quality at $42,153,006), and a value ETF (Vanguard Value at $34,807,928).
Notably, neither IBIT nor the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust appeared in Dartmouth’s prior 13F for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025, supporting the claim that both positions were new additions heading into year-end. Notably, Dartmouth is not the first campus allocator to route crypto exposure through the ETF wrapper. Brown University disclosed a new IBIT position in its March 31, 2025 13F, 105,000 shares valued around $4.9 million, the school’s “first foray” into spot Bitcoin ETF ownership that quarter.
Emory University moved earlier. In an October 2024 disclosure, the Atlanta-based school reported putting $15.8 million from its endowment into a publicly traded bitcoin ETF, with the filing showing roughly 2.7 million shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust.
And at the other end of the spectrum sits Harvard’s endowment manager. Harvard Management Co.’s public-equities 13F for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2025 showed IBIT as its largest reported position, 6,813,612 shares worth about $442.9 million on the filing’s valuation marks.
At press time, Bitcoin traded at $96,284.
