Brown University Dives Into Bitcoin—You Won’t Believe Where Their Endowment Went! 🤑

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One wakes up in the morn and expects the usual dusty dispatches from academe—perhaps news of a new rowing boat or a scandal involving cucumber sandwiches. But lo and behold, Brown University, that staid temple of tweed jackets and Latin mottos, has suddenly turned sharp operator with a $4.9 million plunge into the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). Yes, you read that correctly: the old place is slinging crypto now, according to the SEC no less. Imagine the scene at the investment committee—half the room wondering if ‘Bitcoin’ was the surname of a Georgian gentleman, the other half Googling ‘ETF’ on the sly.

Brown now joins a bracing crowd of financial heavyweights indulging in what the Chancellor probably describes as “cutting-edge digital asset allocation” and everyone else calls “trying to beat Yale.” Hedge funds, pensions, and august university endowments are all tripping over themselves to snag a piece of the Bitcoin ETF pie, because buying actual bitcoin would require, well, remembering one’s wallet password.

Apparently, IBIT has become the crème de la crème of the ETF universe, boasting 576,000 actual bitcoin at last headcount and assets worth a mighty $47.78 billion. Someone’s spreadsheet somewhere is in a right fluster. For reference, this sort of faffing about was gathering immense momentum as of January 2024, and by March it required a small platoon simply to pronounce the numbers.

Now, Brown’s endowment itself is no shrinking violet: the thing weighs in at a positively elephantine $7 billion, and the boffins managed to wring an 11.3% return last year—presumably from a combination of smart thinking and sheer luck. Traditionally, their portfolio was the usual assortment of stocks, bonds, and whatever the young people are wild about these days. But now, with a flick of the academic cowl, Bitcoin ETFs have been ushered into the hallowed halls, hinting at stormy seas—or at least livelier alumni reunions.

It seems the world’s financial wizards have cooked up a way to bottle Bitcoin’s wild scent and decant it into the familiar casks of Wall Street, sparing the varsity dons from the harrowing ordeal of losing their keys or explaining blockchain to the Dean. Brown gets to ride the crypto rollercoaster—with all the excitement, and none of the mess. 🎢🎩

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2025-05-03 17:25