MSCI has consulted with market participants regarding the proposals and plans to implement them at the November 2026 Index Review. If enacted, Strategy and Metaplanet would be deleted from all Global Investable Market Indexes at that Review.
May 2026 backtests with the proposed methodology identified these two Bitcoin treasury companies and U.K. uranium investor Yellow Cake among those that would be deleted.
The index provider MSCI is still seeking feedback until Sept. 30 and is expected to announce the outcome of the consultation on or around Oct. 16. If adopted, it could be implemented for the next review in November, although MSCI has cautioned that the consultation does not guarantee any or all of its proposed changes.
The updated rule is more broad than a previously proposed MSCI rule allowing a crypto-specific threshold, limited to treasury businesses of digital asset companies, which was scrapped in February following concerns from investors over whether a simple asset test could distinguish between operating companies and investment vehicles. Strategy had called the previous 50% digital asset threshold arbitrary.
The proposal was to apply a two-stage screen to each industry, with automatic passing of the screen by issuers that held operating assets greater than 50% of total assets.
Companies below the cutoff would undergo a second assessment of the intensity of their operating assets, expenses, operating cash flow, non-operating fair value changes, and reliance on financing to grow assets.
A non-operating company was any company that triggered any four or more of those five criteria. Member companies would be subject to less stringent criteria, and if they did not pass the screen for eligibility, they would only be excluded after failing it in two consecutive annual reviews. The new candidates who failed the latest review would become ineligible.
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In the May MSCI simulation, Strategy, Yellow Cake and Metaplanet were flagged for deletion — with free-float adjusted market capitalizations of $23.93 billion, $1.81 billion and $654 million respectively — while SharpLink, Center Laboratories and Lydia Holding would have been placed on the public watchlist, since they had only one qualifying period of failure.
Should these stocks be removed from MSCI indexes, passive funds following those indexes may be forced to sell them. MSCI has not provided an estimate of the selling pressure.
In the prior crypto treasury consultation, JPMorgan estimated that, in the absence of Strategy, there would be $2.8 billion of passive selling pressure; this estimate is based on the prior methodology, and not an estimate for the current consultation.
Separately from the August consultation, another change is expected to be made in November.
Strategy remains heavily exposed to Bitcoin. Metaplanet has continued to operate a Bitcoin treasury strategy. Neither company has been removed yet. The May simulation is a hypothetical scenario that uses the given data.
Read More: Metaplanet’s $322M Bitcoin Transfer Sparks Sale Fears — CEO Says No BTC Was Sold
The actual November outcome will depend upon whether MSCI takes the step, as well as any updated company filings and the persistence tests in the framework.
