Index provider MSCI has reopened the question whether Bitcoin treasury companies belong in its equity indexes, and it has done so by removing the feature Strategy (MSTR) spent last winter attacking.
MSCI, which provides stock market indexes used by investors worldwide, published a consultation this month proposing to exclude companies whose primary business is holding assets rather than operating a commercial business from its Global Investable Market Indexes. If the proposed rule had been applied to the MSCI All Country World Investable Market Index (ACWI IMI) using May 2026 data, Strategy, Metaplanet (3350) and Yellow Cake (YCA), a London-listed company that holds physical uranium, would have been removed. Three other companies, including Ether treasury company SharpLink (SBET), would have been placed on a watch list.
Feedback closes on 30 Sept, results are due by 16 Oct and any changes take effect at the November index review.
The discrimination argument is gone
MSCI first tried to exclude Bitcoin (BTC) treasury companies from its indexes in October 2025 by proposing to remove companies with more than 50% of their assets in digital assets. Strategy argued the threshold was arbitrary and discriminatory, while asset manager Strive, co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, also opposed the plan. MSCI later withdrew the proposal, putting the changes on hold in January.
The new proposal takes a different approach. It does not mention digital assets at all. Instead, MSCI would first assess whether a company's operating assets make up more than half of its total assets. Companies that fail that test would then be assessed against five broader financial ratios, with exclusion triggered if they fail four of them.
That means the rule now targets companies that function more like investment vehicles than operating businesses, a distinction Strategy argued MSCI should be using. Strategy would still be excluded under the proposed methodology, but it would sit alongside companies such as uranium holder Yellow Cake and others with no exposure to crypto.
Strategy is already past the buffer
MSCI built in shelter for existing constituents: easier thresholds for newcomers, and failure across two consecutive annual filings before deletion. A company that fails only its latest filing would instead be placed on the watch list.
Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake are in the deletion bucket, not on the watch list. Under MSCI's own rules, that means they already fail the lenient thresholds on two consecutive years of filings. The buffer presented as protection has run.
The market priced it as an index problem
Strategy fell 3.5% to $93.64 by 4:20UTC on 14 Aug, most of it in the opening minutes of US trading, against a BTC price down about 1%. Given the stock's recent sensitivity to Bitcoin, close to two times, that is a considerably larger fall than the underlying move implies.
What is at stake
Float-adjusted market capitalization across the three deletions is roughly $26bn, of which Strategy is $24bn. That is the base passive money tracks, and any outflow depends on how much capital follows ACWI IMI and the benchmarks built from it.
A cost has also been running since January. MSCI did not simply shelve the first proposal, it froze increases to share counts and inclusion factors for treasury companies and stopped adding new ones. Strategy has kept buying Bitcoin, holding now more than 840,000 BTC, but its index weight has not grown with it.
The consultation is not a final decision, and MSCI has reversed course once already. But last time, the industry could argue the rule singled out crypto. This time the case has to be that a company holding tens of billions in Bitcoin against minimal operating revenue still qualifies as an operating business, made to index clients rather than to the public.
