New MSCI regulations take effect in November: 3 Bitcoin holders face exclusion from the index

According to Woofun AI, MSCI, the world's leading index compiling agency, officially announced on October 15, 2026, that it will implement a new strict exclusion rule for “non-operating companies.” The rule aims to remove companies lacking real business operating entities from the MSCI Global Investable Markets Index (GIMI). This move marks a major shift in index compilation logic from simply focusing on the size of assets to emphasizing the substantiveness of the business.

The decision was not made out of thin air; it was the final version based on a draft solicitation of comments issued on August 3, after absorbing market feedback and making minor revisions. For companies that have long relied on digital assets or financial asset allocation rather than traditional main business, the establishment of this rule means that their threshold for entering the mainstream passive investment vision has been completely reshaped. In particular, companies that hold crypto assets such as BTC as their core business model are on the edge of being marginalized by mainstream indices. The core of this announcement is to clearly define what is “non-operating” and to separate it from the composition of the index through quantitative financial indicators, which has raised serious concerns in the market about the capital flow of related concept stocks.

The schedule for the new regulations is extremely tight and points directly to the upcoming quarterly adjustment window. According to MSCI's official schedule, the new regulation will be fully applied for the first time during the regular index review in November, and is scheduled to officially take effect when trading ends on November 30.

This means that all affected existing constituent stocks must complete identity verification before the deadline, and any companies that do not meet the new standards will be removed from the index. To ensure that the market has enough time to absorb this shock, MSCI has published a preliminary list of existing constituents that may be affected on its official website for investors and analysts to pre-evaluate.

However, the most decisive moment will be November 11, when MSCI will announce the final exclusion list along with the index review results. This time gap provides a short buffer period for the market, but it also heightens uncertainty, as investors need to determine in just a few days which companies can get through and which will face passive withdrawal of funds.

This intense schedule reflects MSCI's determination to promote the purity of the index, while also putting tremendous pressure on related companies' PR responses and investor decisions.

To understand the deep logic behind this exclusion, it is necessary to thoroughly analyze MSCI's definition of a 'non-operating company' and the context of its evolution. For a long time, the MSCI Global Investable Markets Index (GIMI) has excluded investment funds and corporate closed-end funds (BDCs) from constituent stocks because these entities mainly exist as investment carriers rather than create economic value through their own operations. The breakthrough of this new regulation is that it extends this exclusion principle to ordinary listed companies, especially those entities that have a corporate form but whose core activities are similar to investment funds. In the draft solicitation of comments issued on August 3, MSCI clearly stated that with changes in the market structure, more and more companies are replacing traditional business operations by holding large amounts of financial assets or digital assets, making it difficult for traditional industry classification methods to accurately reflect their risk-return characteristics. Therefore, introducing a quantitative financial screening mechanism has become a necessary means to identify and eliminate these 'fraudulent operations' companies.

This move is not only to maintain the representative nature of the index, but also to respond to the growing demand from institutional investors for transparency and sustainability in the index's constituent businesses.

At the specific implementation level, MSCI designed a quantitative screening framework with 5 financial ratios as the core basis for determining whether a company is 'not operational'. This framework first passes a core screening criteria to confirm whether the company has substantial business assets of a considerable scale.

If the company fails this initial screening, regardless of the industry it belongs to, it will face strict testing of the next 5 financial ratios. The five ratios include total business assets as a share of total assets, operating expenses ratio, operating cash flow, changes in the fair value of non-business assets, and dependence on external funding. According to the rules, if a company is judged not to meet the criteria in 4 or more of the above 5 indicators, it is considered a “non-operating company” and therefore disqualified from entering the GIMI index.

Notably, although these 5 indicators were already listed in the August draft for comments, the specific threshold values were not fully disclosed, but were detailed in Appendix I of the GIMI methodological paper. This translucent approach not only guarantees the rigor of the rules, but also gives MSCI some room for flexible adjustments, but it also makes it difficult for investors to accurately calculate each company's safety margin.

In order to reduce frequent changes in index constituent stocks, MSCI introduced a buffer mechanism in the judgment process, reflecting its balance between rule rigidity and market stability. For existing index constituent stocks, the new regulations adopt a relatively lenient treatment: only when a company is judged not to meet the standards twice in a row in its annual accounts for the last two fiscal years will it be officially removed.

This means that even if a company temporarily hits the red line in a single year due to business restructuring or asset fluctuations, it still has a chance to maintain its index position by improving its financial situation in the next year. However, for new applicant companies that have not yet entered the index, the rules are much stricter: as long as it is determined that it does not meet the standards in any of the last two fiscal years, the company will be permanently banned from entering the index.

Furthermore, MSCI also reserves the possibility of using recent interim results data to make decisions, which further complicates the evaluation. This double standard design aims to protect the stability of existing investors' positions while preventing new 'non-operating' entities from entering the index, thereby ensuring the long-term quality and consistency of the index.

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, at the same time, MSCI announced a major policy adjustment relating to digital asset holders: temporary protection measures for companies with digital assets accounting for 50% or more of total assets will be officially terminated during the November index review. Previously, in order to cope with sharp fluctuations and regulatory uncertainty in the crypto asset market, MSCI imposed a series of restrictions on these companies, including freezing the number of their shares and increasing free circulation adjustment factors, and suspending the migration of their newly included indices and size categories. These temporary measures were intended to prevent these highly volatile assets from having an excessive impact on the stability of the index.

However, with the implementation of the new regulations, these temporary restrictions will be lifted and replaced by uniform screening criteria for non-operating companies. This means that in the future, digital asset holders will no longer enjoy special 'protection' or 'isolation', but will be tested on the same financial ratios as all other companies.

This change shows that MSCI has moved from initial 'special treatment' to 'uniform standards' to try to manage risk through quantitative financial metrics rather than asset classes. This also provides fair opportunities for companies that actually have business substance but hold some digital assets, while also putting pure digital asset holders under more direct pressure to eliminate them.

Based on financial data as of May 2026, MSCI provided a simulation estimate in an August consultation draft. The results showed that three companies may be at risk of being excluded. The three companies are Strategy (MSTR.US), the world's largest BTC holding company, MetaPlanet in Japan, and Yellow Cake, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange and holds physical uranium assets. In the simulation application of the MSCI ACWI IMI Index, none of these three companies passed the new quantitative screening tests. Strategy (MSTR.US) is an iconic enterprise in the field of crypto assets. The vast majority of its assets are composed of BTC, and its business operations are relatively thin, so it is easy to trigger the “non-operating” criteria. MetaPlanet is also known for its aggressive BTC buying strategy, and its asset structure is similar to Strategy (MSTR.US). Although Yellow Cake holds physical uranium, its business model is closer to resource hoarding than traditional mining operations, so it also shows similar investment fund characteristics in terms of financial ratios.

Although no specific company names were mentioned in this official announcement, the market generally anticipates that these companies are likely to appear on the final exclusion list announced on November 11, unless there is a significant change in the business structure between May and November.

This potential outcome has aroused widespread concern and concern in the market.

Strategy (MSTR.US) is particularly opposed to this new regulation. The controversy behind it focuses on the subjectivity of asset classification and the consistency of the rules. As early as January 2026, MSCI proposed an exclusion plan for digital asset holders, but after receiving strong opposition from many parties, including Strategy (MSTR.US), it was finally decided to suspend implementation. At the time, MSCI's rationale was that the index should reflect the performance of operating companies and should not include investment as the main activity.

However, Strategy (MSTR.US) believes that this reason was used by MSCI to conceal its discriminatory treatment of crypto asset holders. During the ensuing agreement, Strategy (MSTR.US) submitted an open letter, harshly criticizing MSCI's asset classification standards as arbitrary, and pointing out that the current proposed new 'non-operating company' regulations essentially re-introduced the digital asset exclusion plan proposed in 2025 and suspended in January 2026 in a different way of expressing it. Strategy (MSTR.US) argues that this “changing soup, not medicine” practice not only lacks transparency, but also violates the principle of fairness in index compilation. They believe that as long as a company has a legitimate business purpose and governance structure, its asset allocation strategy should not be a reason to be excluded from mainstream indices.

This debate not only concerns the fate of several companies, but also touches on the fundamental question of how traditional financial systems define and accept new asset classes.

Despite strong opposition from Strategy (MSTR.US), the market remains highly alert to the risk of capital outflows it faces. According to Strategy (MSTR.US)'s own estimates, passive investment funds linked to the MSCI GIMI Index currently hold only 3.1% of Strategy (MSTR.US) shares. Although this ratio may seem small, in a market environment dominated by passive investment, index exclusion often leads to large-scale forced sell-offs, which has a significant impact on stock prices. In particular, for growth or conceptual companies that rely heavily on inflows of index funds to support valuations, being removed from mainstream indices is tantamount to cutting off an important source of liquidity.

Furthermore, due to the large market capitalization of Strategy (MSTR.US), its exclusion may trigger a chain reaction and affect the valuation logic of other relevant crypto asset holders. Investors are keeping a close eye on the November 11 final list to assess the actual scale of this risk.

If Strategy (MSTR.US) is actually eliminated, the market may re-evaluate its investment value as a 'BTC proxy share', which in turn affects the liquidity expectations of the entire crypto asset sector. This uncertainty itself may be a potential factor suppressing stock prices.

Looking ahead, the announcement of the final list on November 11 will be a key point in testing the actual impact of MSCI's new regulations. For crypto-related stock investors, this event was not only a short-term market fluctuation, but also a long-term structural signal. It shows that traditional financial infrastructure is gradually tightening its inclusiveness to non-traditional business models, forcing related companies to either return to substantial business operations or accept the fate of being marginalized. CoinPost's analysis indicates that as mainstream index compilers such as MSCI increase their requirements for 'business essential', listed companies in the cryptocurrency industry will face greater compliance and disclosure pressure. Investors need to take a closer look at a company's real business model rather than just focusing on the amount of crypto assets it holds.

This trend may accelerate the integration of the cryptocurrency industry with traditional financial systems, but it may also trigger short-term market shocks. In any case, MSCI's action has undoubtedly injected a dose of sobriety into the investment logic of the entire market, reminding investors not to ignore the risks of changes in fundamentals and rules while chasing hot spots. This is yet another in-depth review of companies holding crypto assets initiated by mainstream financial markets following stricter regulatory policies.