Written by angelilu, Foresight News
On October 16, MSCI finalized a new index eligibility rule, and the first to be hit were crypto treasury companies.
Under the new rules, starting from the November index review, listed companies that derive value mainly from holding assets and lack actual operating activities may be classified as "non-operating companies" and no longer qualify for inclusion in the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes. In other words, companies such as Strategy, Metaplanet, and Upexi, which rely on capital market financing to buy coins, may no longer be regarded by MSCI as ordinary operating enterprises.
MSCI also published a list of potentially affected companies. Of the 22 companies, 14 are directly related to cryptocurrencies: Strategy, Metaplanet, and SOL treasury company Upexi were listed as proposed deletions, while another 11 companies, including SharpLink and Solana Company, entered the watchlist. Based on the free-float market capitalization in the table, crypto companies account for 94.5% of the entire list, with the vast majority coming from Strategy.
The new rules first determine whether a company's asset structure contains enough operating assets. Companies that fail this test must then undergo checks against five financial indicators, including operating expenses, operating cash flow, changes in fair value, and reliance on external financing. If four or more are triggered, the company may lose index eligibility. For companies already in the index, MSCI requires that they fail the screening in both of the most recent two annual reporting periods before they are removed.
This is not yet the final deletion result. MSCI will publish the official list on November 11, and the new rules will take effect after the close on November 30. But the debate has already moved from "whether a company holds too much crypto assets" to a more fundamental question: when a listed company's main job becomes financing and buying coins, is it still an operating company?
14 crypto companies appear on the list
Of the 5 companies proposed for deletion, 3 are digital asset treasury companies:
Bitcoin treasury company Strategy;
Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet;
SOL treasury company Upexi.
The other two are UK uranium investment company Yellow Cake and Icelandic investment holding company SKEL, showing that the rule is not formally aimed only at crypto assets.
Another 11 crypto-related companies were placed on the watchlist, including:
ETH treasury company SharpLink;
CC (Canton) treasury company Canton Strategic Holdings;
ZEC treasury company Cypherpunk Technologies;
SUI treasury company SUI Group;
TON treasury company TON Strategy;
BTC treasury company Capital B;
SOL treasury company Solana Compan;
SOL treasury company DeFi Development;
WLFI treasury company AI Financial;
RAIN treasury company Enlivex;
GD Culture, which holds BTC and previously announced an allocation to TRUMP.
Based on the data in MSCI's table, the combined free-float market capitalization of these 14 companies is approximately $42.016 billion, accounting for 94.5% of the free-float market capitalization of the 22 potentially affected companies.
However, this figure is almost entirely supported by Strategy alone: its free-float market capitalization is approximately $40.291 billion, accounting for 95.9% of the 14 crypto companies. Most of the remaining companies are still microcaps with limited liquidity.
MSCI no longer just counts how many coins a company holds
This is not the first time MSCI has dealt with digital asset treasury companies.
In October 2025, MSCI proposed a much more direct standard: if digital assets account for 50% or more of a company's total assets, it would be regarded as a digital asset treasury company. The relevant securities were not immediately deleted at the time, but increases in share count, foreign investor inclusion factors, and domestic inclusion factors were frozen, and new index eligibility and size-segment migration were also postponed.
This standard quickly ran into a problem. Why should a company holding a large amount of Bitcoin resemble an investment fund, while companies holding large amounts of gold, uranium, securities, or other non-operating assets can remain in ordinary equity indexes?
In January 2026, MSCI decided not to implement the deletion plan targeting digital asset treasury companies for the time being, and instead to study all listed companies "primarily engaged in investment rather than operations." The new plan announced in August no longer names Bitcoin or other tokens, but instead starts from a company's assets, cash flow, and financing methods to determine whether it is operating a business or accumulating assets.
Therefore, this change is not an ordinary quarterly rebalancing. Regular index reviews mainly deal with changes in market capitalization, liquidity, free-float proportions, and size segments; this new rule addresses a more fundamental eligibility issue. Even if a stock is still trading and meets size and liquidity requirements, as long as its financial structure increasingly resembles an investment vehicle, it may no longer be included in the index as an ordinary operating company.
The August simulation list had only 3 proposed deletions and 3 watchlist companies. The latest document has expanded to 5 proposed deletions and 17 watchlist companies. Crypto treasury companies have also expanded from a few cases such as Strategy, Metaplanet, and SharpLink to multiple assets including BTC, ETH, SOL, SUI, and ZEC.
If removed, the first thing sold is the stock
If Strategy is ultimately removed from the relevant MSCI indexes, the most direct action occurs in the stock market: passive funds tracking these indexes need to sell Strategy shares and reallocate the funds to other constituents. The Bitcoin held by the company will not automatically enter the market because of the index adjustment.
The market is clearly divided on the potential selling pressure. JPMorgan previously estimated that Strategy's removal from relevant MSCI indexes could correspond to about $2.8 billion in passive outflows. Strategy's own calculation shows that funds tracking MSCI GIMI hold about 13 million shares, roughly 3.1% of its basic shares, equivalent to 60% of its 30-day average trading volume. The former figure emphasizes concentrated selling pressure, while the latter emphasizes that the market has the capacity to absorb these shares; neither can be directly equated with the final loss.
By Strategy's own measure, the relevant index holdings amount to less than one trading day's volume. For the microcap companies on the list, the problem may be more serious. Their daily trading volume is small, and although the index funds involved may be limited in dollar terms, they may represent a higher share of marginal demand. Being placed on the watchlist itself may also lead investors to adjust valuations and positions in advance.
Index adjustments will not directly force treasury companies to sell BTC, ETH, or SOL, but they may weaken their ability to continue buying coins. Digital asset treasury companies usually issue shares or bonds when their stock price is above the net asset value of the assets they hold, and then use the proceeds to buy more tokens. If index fund outflows push down the stock price and valuation premium, the company's financing costs will rise, and the scale of future coin purchases may also shrink accordingly. For the crypto market, what may truly decline is subsequent incremental buying, not immediate forced selling.
Who decides what a company is
During MSCI's consultation period, Strategy publicly opposed this line. The company argued that "operating" and "non-operating" are not established classifications under US accounting standards, International Financial Reporting Standards, or existing legal frameworks, and that its Bitcoin business already appears as an operating segment in its financial reports. According to Strategy, MSCI has merely rephrased its earlier rules targeting digital asset treasury companies.
MSCI's rationale is that global equity indexes have always excluded ETFs, investment funds, business development companies, and other passive investment vehicles. The new financial indicators are merely intended to identify issuers whose legal form is still that of a listed company but whose economic characteristics are already close to those of an investment vehicle.
Yellow Cake was also included on the list, showing that MSCI's new rules are not aimed only at digital assets. But among the 22 potentially affected companies, 14 are directly related to cryptocurrencies, accounting for more than 90% of free-float market capitalization. The rules use an asset-neutral set of financial standards, yet the actual pressure falls mainly on crypto treasury companies.Therefore, the final list MSCI will announce on November 11 is not just an index constituent adjustment. Whether Strategy and Upexi are removed, and whether companies such as SharpLink and Solana Company remain on the watchlist, will show where MSCI intends to draw the line between "operating companies" and "investment vehicles."