Both the state of Texas and Harvard University have made the news in the past few months, as both disclosed that they have recently invested in Bitcoin. Is this a good move? Did one do better than the other? Is Texas smarter than Harvard?
Harvard University Investment in Bitcoin
According to the Wall Street Journal, Harvard’s endowment fund bought 4.9 million shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) in the third quarter of 2025. This is in addition to the 1.9 million shares it bought in the second quarter of 2025, bringing the total investment to about $500 million.
We don’t know exactly when Harvard bought the ETF shares or what price they paid. Per Yahoo! Finance, the low price for IBIT in the third quarter of 2025 was $59.83 on July 1, 2025. Yesterday (December 15, 2025), IBIT closed at $48.66. The best case scenario for Harvard, if they bought at the low point, is a loss of 18.7%. The worst case? If they bought at the Q3 peak price of $69.89 on August 13, that’s a loss of 30.3%. Ouch.
Texas’s Investment in Bitcoin
The state of Texas approached things a little differently, according to the Texas Tribune. The state legislature appropriated $10 million to start a “strategic Bitcoin reserve.” On November 20, the state invested half of that to buy Bitcoin at a price of $91,336. Per Yahoo! Finance, Bitcoin closed at $86,419.78 on December 15, 2025. That’s a loss of 5.4%.
Because Texas bought Bitcoin at a lower price, it’s always going to have a better result than Harvard, if they both continue to hold their investments. If the price of Bitcoin rises again in the future, Texas will have a higher percentage gain because they bought at a lower price. If the price of Bitcoin continues to fall (it’s currently trading at about 30% below its most recent 52-week high), then Texas will have a lower percentage loss–unless Bitcoin goes all the way to zero, in which case both Harvard and Texas will have a 100% loss.
So, is Texas smarter than Harvard? I’ll let you decide the answer to that. Maybe Texas just lucked into a better position due to random walk of the market. Or maybe they’re both nuts for investing in Bitcoin at all.
At Dominion Financial Advisors, we advise investors to steer clear of volatile, speculative investments like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. Instead, we believe in using a portfolio of low-cost, index and/or rules-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds as the basis of your portfolio. We believe that consistent diversification and low fees are critical to investor success. We tailor specific portfolios for each client while using our basic investing approach.
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