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MSCI Proposal Could Strip Strategy and Metaplanet From Global Stock Indexes
15 Aug 2026, 11:34
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MSCI is consulting on a rule that would exclude companies whose assets are mostly non-operating holdings rather than an active business, a methodology that would remove Bitcoin treasury firms Strategy and Metaplanet from its widely tracked indexes.
Index provider MSCI has reopened the question of whether Bitcoin treasury companies belong in its widely tracked equity benchmarks, this time using a different methodology than the one it tried and abandoned last year. The firm published a consultation this month proposing to exclude companies whose primary business is holding assets rather than running an operating business from its Global Investable Market Indexes, a rule that would sweep in Strategy and Metaplanet, two of the best-known corporate Bitcoin holders.
Applying the proposed rule to May 2026 data would have removed Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake, a London-listed physical uranium holder, from the MSCI All Country World Investable Market Index. Three other companies, including Ether treasury firm SharpLink, would have landed on a watch list instead. Feedback on the proposal closes September 30, with results due by mid-October and any changes taking effect at the November index review.
The new approach is notably different from MSCI's first attempt in October 2025, which explicitly targeted companies holding more than half their assets in digital currencies. Strategy pushed back hard at the time, arguing the threshold was arbitrary, and asset manager Strive also opposed the plan, leading MSCI to shelve it in January. This time, the proposal never mentions digital assets at all. Instead, it first checks whether a company's operating assets exceed half of its total assets, then applies five broader financial ratios to companies that fail that initial test, triggering exclusion if four of the five are also failed.
That shift matters because it removes the argument that crypto is being singled out. The rule instead targets any company functioning more like an investment vehicle than an operating business, a framing closer to what Strategy itself argued MSCI should use last year. The catch is that Strategy would still fail the test, just now alongside companies with no crypto exposure at all, like the uranium holder Yellow Cake.
MSCI built in some protection for existing index members, including more lenient thresholds for companies already included and a requirement to fail two consecutive annual filings before deletion, with a single failed filing triggering only a watch-list placement. Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake are already sitting in the deletion bucket rather than the watch list, meaning they have already failed the lenient standard across two straight years under MSCI's own criteria.
Markets reacted quickly to the news. Strategy shares fell 3.5% in the opening minutes of US trading on the day of the announcement, a notably sharp move against a Bitcoin price that was down only about 1% over the same period, given the stock's typical sensitivity of roughly two times Bitcoin's moves. The combined float-adjusted market capitalization at risk across the three companies facing removal is roughly $26 billion, with Strategy alone accounting for about $24 billion of that figure, representing the base of passive investment capital that tracks the index.
A cost has already been accumulating since January, when MSCI froze increases to share counts and inclusion factors for treasury companies rather than fully shelving its original proposal. Strategy has continued buying Bitcoin throughout this period, now holding more than 840,000 BTC, but its weighting in MSCI's indexes has not grown to reflect that accumulation. The consultation remains open and MSCI has reversed course on this exact issue once before, but the argument facing the industry this time is harder to make: that a company holding tens of billions of dollars in Bitcoin against minimal operating revenue still qualifies as an operating business.
Applying the proposed rule to May 2026 data would have removed Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake, a London-listed physical uranium holder, from the MSCI All Country World Investable Market Index. Three other companies, including Ether treasury firm SharpLink, would have landed on a watch list instead. Feedback on the proposal closes September 30, with results due by mid-October and any changes taking effect at the November index review.
The new approach is notably different from MSCI's first attempt in October 2025, which explicitly targeted companies holding more than half their assets in digital currencies. Strategy pushed back hard at the time, arguing the threshold was arbitrary, and asset manager Strive also opposed the plan, leading MSCI to shelve it in January. This time, the proposal never mentions digital assets at all. Instead, it first checks whether a company's operating assets exceed half of its total assets, then applies five broader financial ratios to companies that fail that initial test, triggering exclusion if four of the five are also failed.
That shift matters because it removes the argument that crypto is being singled out. The rule instead targets any company functioning more like an investment vehicle than an operating business, a framing closer to what Strategy itself argued MSCI should use last year. The catch is that Strategy would still fail the test, just now alongside companies with no crypto exposure at all, like the uranium holder Yellow Cake.
MSCI built in some protection for existing index members, including more lenient thresholds for companies already included and a requirement to fail two consecutive annual filings before deletion, with a single failed filing triggering only a watch-list placement. Strategy, Metaplanet and Yellow Cake are already sitting in the deletion bucket rather than the watch list, meaning they have already failed the lenient standard across two straight years under MSCI's own criteria.
Markets reacted quickly to the news. Strategy shares fell 3.5% in the opening minutes of US trading on the day of the announcement, a notably sharp move against a Bitcoin price that was down only about 1% over the same period, given the stock's typical sensitivity of roughly two times Bitcoin's moves. The combined float-adjusted market capitalization at risk across the three companies facing removal is roughly $26 billion, with Strategy alone accounting for about $24 billion of that figure, representing the base of passive investment capital that tracks the index.
A cost has already been accumulating since January, when MSCI froze increases to share counts and inclusion factors for treasury companies rather than fully shelving its original proposal. Strategy has continued buying Bitcoin throughout this period, now holding more than 840,000 BTC, but its weighting in MSCI's indexes has not grown to reflect that accumulation. The consultation remains open and MSCI has reversed course on this exact issue once before, but the argument facing the industry this time is harder to make: that a company holding tens of billions of dollars in Bitcoin against minimal operating revenue still qualifies as an operating business.