Numerous large U.S. endowments from universities including Harvard, Yale, Brown University, and the University of Michigan have been buying crypto currency on exchanges according to reports.
University endowments are traditionally comprised of money or other financial assets such as crypto that are donated to academic institutions.
The report, featured on Bloomberg, stated that COINBASE mentioned endowments as among clients who have been investing in crypto this month.
Harvard and Yale are among schools whose endowments have begun buying cryptocurrency directly on exchanges, according to a report https://t.co/YYsPdAxpMU
— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) January 26, 2021
When asked for further details about how long investments have been occurring, the anonymous source said;
“It could be since mid-2019. Most have been in at least a year. I would think they will probably discuss it publicly at some point this year. I suspect they would be sitting on some pretty nice chunks of return.”
Institutions and Now Universities Into Crypto
University endowments have a specific legal structure that is intended to indefinitely perpetuate a pool of investments for a specific purpose, and crypto assets have been the best performing so far this year.
Harvard’s is the largest university endowment with over $40 billion in assets, while Yale has over $30 billion, Michigan has about $12.5 billion, and Brown holds $4.7 billion. It is unknown how much of this is in crypto assets but in all likelihood, it is a small fraction.
Bloomberg mentioned institutional investment as having a huge influence on Bitcoin prices in recent months, specifically citing big investors like Guggenheim Partners LLC and Paul Tudor Jones which have helped raise interest and set a precedent.
MicroStrategy continues to buy up Bitcoins with its latest purchase on January 22 totaling $10 million at the time.
MicroStrategy has purchased approximately 314 bitcoins for $10.0 million in cash in accordance with its Treasury Reserve Policy, at an average price of approximately $31,808 per bitcoin. We now hold approximately 70,784 bitcoins.https://t.co/zMJSH29bmC
— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) January 22, 2021
CEO Michael Saylor also pointed out that the Nasdaq listed Marathon Patent Group had just purchased $150 million worth of BTC, commenting;
“Another public company adopts Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.”
Grayscale is also back in ‘buying mode’ since Bitcoin is now 25% cheaper than it was at an all-time high almost three weeks ago. The institutional fund’s total assets under management figure is back up to $26.6 billion.
01/25/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.
Total AUM: $26.6 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $ZEC pic.twitter.com/us3FF6293c
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) January 25, 2021
Bitcoin Price Outlook
At the time of press, Bitcoin was continuing to correct, having lost 4.7% on the day in a fall back to $31,600. It is now down around 13% on the week and is heading back towards the psychological $30k support zone.
A break below this could result in an acceleration of the pullback to 40% levels which would be around $25,000.
