Harvard dumps its entire ETH ETF holdings in Q1

Ethereum is swimming in FUD right now, and institutional exits—led by Harvard University—aren't helping the altcoin's PR problem. The Harvard University Endowment Fund made headlines for dumping its entire ETH position of $86.8 million through BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust Fund (ETHA). This stands in sharp contrast to its BTC holdings, which were merely halved from $265M to roughly $117 million quarter-on-quarter, according to recent 13F filings. Translation: the university thinks Bitcoin has better upside than Ethereum. For traders, this signals Harvard isn't expecting ETH to moon anytime soon.

Worth noting—Harvard wasn't alone in its ETH exit. Per 13F filings, BlackRock's ETHA, the largest Spot ETH ETF, saw a 5% drop in institutional ownership in Q1. Surprisingly, the selling didn't pause when Q1 ended. Fund flows data from TradingView reveals ETHA has hemorrhaged $922 million year-to-date. In the past month alone, BlackRock's ETHA saw $239 million in redemptions. But that nets out to roughly $485 million exiting the BlackRock ETH ecosystem since its new staked fund (ETHB) has attracted $515 million year-to-date. Still, broader ETH funds remain under pressure. CoinShares data shows funds lost $249 million last week, with month-to-date redemptions hitting $73M.

Part of the market's bad taste comes from reports of the Ethereum Foundation's top researchers jumping ship. Ethereum's return to a deflationary path has also proven elusive, with L2s absorbing most transactions that used to happen on the mainnet. Case in point—Grayscale proposed capping staking rewards to make ETH look more like a store of value. The weak sentiment has dragged the Fear & Greed Index down to a cheerful 28.

For FundStrat's Tom Lee, though, the bearish vibes are just crypto winter doing its thing, not recent negative headlines. He told clients that much of the bearish sentiment reflects the disdain and despair seen at the nadir of crypto winter. At time of writing, ETH was换 trading at $2.1K, down 12% from early May's high of $2.4K. While extreme FUD often makes for a decent buying opportunity, it's still unclear whether a potential U.S-Iran deal could be the next catalyst for ETH bulls.