Change of Rules During the Game. How a Financial Giant Can Trigger an Avalanche in Strategy Stocks

The American industry research institute Bitcoin Policy Institute has published a report that directly undermines the transparency and the background of the new classification rules for listed companies created by one of the most important financial index providers in the world, MSCI.

Experts from this non-governmental organization, which focuses on creating analyses in the field of economic policy around digital assets, pointed out the latest proposal to introduce a restrictive definition of so-called non-operating enterprises. The crux of the matter is that such a change could lead to the exclusion from global stock indices of companies that have decided to build their capital reserves based on cryptocurrencies. This primarily concerns the American giant Strategy and the Japanese company Metaplanet, which have made cryptocurrency purchases their main strategy.

The entire situation has deep roots in events from 2025, when MSCI first officially proposed removing entities from the main financial indices whose assets consist of at least 50% digital assets. The proposal announced at that time faced a huge wave of criticism from institutional investors, analysts, and representatives of the financial sector itself. As a result, in January 2026, the provider withdrew from its direct idea targeting cryptocurrency reserves and announced that instead, it would take a much broader look at companies that, according to the agency, do not conduct real operational activities. However, the latest consultation version published on August 3 this year proved that the heavily updated criteria still target exactly the same entities that were attempted to be eliminated a year earlier.

Investigation into Metadata

In the report prepared by Conner Brown from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, we can read that the presentation serving as the basis for the new public consultations was stored in an internal company catalog dedicated to companies holding a treasury in digital assets. According to analysts, this fact raises significant questions about the agency's intentions and suggests that the general formulations about non-operating enterprises are merely a reiteration of previous attempts to eliminate businesses related to the cryptocurrency market. source: X

The classification test currently proposed by MSCI assumes a two-step verification procedure for each enterprise. First, it examines whether the so-called operational assets of a given company exceed 50% of its total assets. If the company does not pass this first filter, it undergoes a detailed assessment based on five additional financial indicators, and failing four of them means immediate removal from the index. A simulation conducted by MSCI itself clearly showed that under these rules, not only Strategy and Metaplanet would be removed from global indices, but also the company Yellow Cake, a well-known fund investing in physical uranium.

The Specter of Large Withdrawals

The potential removal of such companies from MSCI indices carries very serious consequences for the entire market. The change in the index composition forces automatic sales of shares by passive funds that must precisely mirror the structure of the index. Analysts at JPMorgan calculated that the removal of Strategy alone from the MSCI list could trigger a direct wave of sell-offs from funds linked to this index amounting to about $2.8 billion, and if other providers joined this step, the amount could rise to as much as $8.8 billion.

Experts from the institute also question the very methodology of determining what constitutes an operational asset in practice. This term does not have a standardized definition under American accounting principles (US GAAP) or international standards (IFRS), which gives the agency enormous discretion in arbitrarily classifying cash, investments, or construction projects. Analysts warn that such broad powers could impact not only the digital asset industry but also capital-intensive sectors such as mining or satellite networks, which accumulate huge assets financed from external sources for many years before achieving their first revenues. Consequently, the institute called on the provider to withdraw the proposed test or introduce it as an optional variant for willing investors. The public consultations ended on September 30, and the agency announced it would announce its final decision by October 16, with any changes set to take effect during the November index revision in 2026.

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