MSCI wants to kick Strategy (MSTR.US) out of the index: passive selling pressure of 2.8 billion US dollars. What is really scary is the “coin buying flywheel” going out of business?

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the global index provider MSCI passed new regulations on October 15. From the close of the market on November 30, “non-operating companies” will no longer be eligible for inclusion in the Global Investable Markets Index (GIMI) as part of the November index review; the final list of those affected will be announced on November 11. Michael Saylor's Strategy (MSTR.US) — the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder and a constituent stock of MSCI USA and MSCI World Index — appeared on the potential exclusion list. Japan's Metaplanet was also on the list, while SharpLink and several other crypto treasury companies were added to the watch list.

Following the news, Strategy shares fell 2.7% in the premarket on Friday. The company closed with a market capitalization of around $64.3 billion on Thursday, and shares have remained largely flat since 2026.

On the face of it, this is an adjustment to the rules of indexing; but when you look at it with Strategy's 848,000 bitcoins, it actually touches on Bitcoin's most stable marginal buying in the past two years — using stocks and bonds to exchange money for bitcoins.

How to screen the new regulations: first check whether there is real management, then go through the five financial ratios

MSCI's motto is to first define a “non-operating company” as an investment fund, business development company (BDC), or other company whose financial position makes it look like the organization described above. The new regulations expand the scope of exclusion of such passive investment instruments, and companies must pass financial tests on operating assets before they can remain eligible.

The specific screening is divided into two steps: the first step is to see if the company has sufficient operating assets; those that fail enter the second step and are evaluated one by one according to five financial ratios. If four or more of these items are hit, they are ineligible for inclusion. The five indicators cover operating assets, expenses, cash flow, changes in asset value, and dependence on external financing.

For companies already in the index, MSCI leaves a buffer: in principle, they will only be removed when the exclusion criteria have been triggered in the last two annual reporting periods; MSCI may also use the latest interim financial report depending on the circumstances; companies outside the index will not be included as long as they fail to meet the standards in any period. According to MSCI, the ratio threshold and the double buffer in timing are aimed at reducing the turnover of constituent stocks.

The timeline has been lengthened: MSCI launched this assessment a year ago. The original plan was to directly exclude digital asset treasury companies on the grounds that they were similar to investment funds — and investment funds had already been excluded from its index; in January of this year, MSCI shelved that plan and began a broader review of all non-operating companies. This round of consultations began on August 3 and ended on September 30, and MSCI announced the results on October 15.

Also terminated were temporary measures introduced in October 2025 — which restricted share increases, frozen inclusion factors, delayed inclusion, and scale adjustments for companies with “digital assets accounting for 50% or more of total assets”. Since then, all of these companies have been assessed according to the new standards.

848,000 bitcoins: position size, costs, and premiums that have turned negative

As of October 4, Strategy holds 848,250 bitcoins, accounting for 4.04% of the 21 million fixed supply; the cumulative investment cost is about US$63.97 billion, with an average cost of about US$75,440.70 per unit. The company estimates that digital assets will increase by about US$20.91 billion in the third quarter.

If you look at this set of numbers and market capitalization together, there is an anomaly: the market closed at around $64.3 billion on Thursday, while the market value of the position according to CoinDesk is about $69.67 billion — the company's market value is already lower than Bitcoin itself in its hands. According to BTCormStr data, Strategy's market capitalization/net asset ratio fell to 0.98 on October 8, which is about a 2% discount compared to Bitcoin's net assets, while the ratio was still around 1.2 during the September rebound period.

Financial-side tension is already evident. From October 1 to 4, the company only spent $28.7 million to buy 334 bitcoins (average price of $85,838.80, including fees), but spent $73.7 million to repurchase preferred shares and use $142.5 million from dollar reserves to pay dividends and interest; on October 12, the company continued to buy coins with $21 million issued in common shares. The pace of buying coins has clearly given way to debt repayment and buybacks.

What does $2.8 billion mean?

What does being rejected mean? The most widely circulated figure in the market is “$2.8 billion,” but it has two sources and two calibers. One is J.P. Morgan's estimation — the exclusion could result in Strategy's passive capital outflow of around $2.8 billion. Based on the $643 billion market cap that closed on Thursday, this equates to around 4.4% of its market value.

The second is the company's own algorithm. Strategy said in a response submitted to MSCI on August 31 that the fund that tracks the GIMI index holds about 13 million shares, accounting for 3.1% of its basic share capital, which is equivalent to 60% of its 30-day average trading volume — less than a trading day. According to the company's assertion, the removal “will not have a substantial impact on Strategy.”

Strategy warned last year that being eliminated would result in the liquidation of its $2.8 billion stock and “chill” the entire industry.

Transferred to currency prices? It's not “I want to throw coins”, but “I can't buy them”

To understand the impact of this incident on Bitcoin, the most important one is: index rules don't force any company to sell Bitcoin; what is being sold is stocks. Strategy's 848,000 copies will not automatically enter the market due to index adjustments.

The real conduction chain is another. Strategy's coin buying model is — when the stock price is higher than its Bitcoin net asset, additional common shares or preferred shares are issued, and the money raised is used to buy coins. The premium is the fuel for this flywheel, and passive buying brought about by the index component status is part of the support for the premium. Once passive funds exit, the demand base for stocks is weakened, and premiums (even currently discounted) are further pressured, the company's financing costs will rise, the scale of additional issuance will shrink, and the amount of future coin purchases will shrink accordingly.

Analysts at ZEROBASE, a decentralized infrastructure network, warned from this perspective: losing index-driven demand could cut off the portion of the increase itself to finance the purchase of coins.

But the magnitude must be looked at calmly. Strategy's recent coin purchases have been quite small — $28.7 million from October 1 to 4, and $21 million on October 12; according to CoinGecko, Bitcoin's 24-hour turnover on October 16 was around $32.88 billion. In other words, as far as current marginal buying is concerned, the contribution of this channel to Japanese transactions is almost negligible. The real risk isn't in the immediate weeks, but at two points:

The first is spillover at the pattern level. Individual investors net sold around 696,000 bitcoins in 2025, while companies, investment funds, and the government combined bought nearly 1 million bitcoins — corporate treasury is one of the most prominent marginal buyers in this market. If the “digital asset treasury” model is shut out of the mainstream index system as a whole, smaller companies such as Metaplanet and Upexi will be hit harder by demand, and incremental purchases for the entire group may shrink, not just Strategy alone.

The second is whether other index traders will follow suit. TFTC has deduced a follow-up scenario between FTSE Russell (FTSE Russell) and S&P Dow Jones Index (S&P Dow Jones), but as of press time, neither company has announced any relevant consultations. This is the biggest tail risk to currency prices in this incident — once the rules spread from one index dealer to the entire index system, what is compressed is no longer a company's ability to finance, but a channel for allocating an entire type of asset.

The currency price itself is already under pressure. This message is superimposed rather than an independent variable

It is important to note that MSCI's selling pressure will fall on a market that is not strong in itself.

On Thursday, Bitcoin once fell below $80,000 to about $79,800, for the first time in more than a month, but was pulled back above $82,000 by buyers within two hours; on Friday, it was reported at around $82,000, with a total market value of about $1.649 trillion. The trigger was higher-than-expected US inflation data: CPI was 3.7% YoY (3.6% expected), PPI +1.3% YoY and +6.3% YoY; while South Korea's Kospi closed at its lowest level since April on Thursday and rebounded nearly 3% on Friday; US 10-year Treasury yields were around 5.07%.

On a technical level, BitDelta India's Purvang Mashru placed resistance at $82,544 and support at $82,000 and $81,000; Delta Exchange's Riya Sehgal believes that $82,200-83,100 is the key resistance band; only above $83,000-$83,500 can confirm a rebound; $81,000 and $80,000 are still key supports; 10x Research suggests holding Bitcoin during the AI transaction retracement phase, but only if BTC stays above $78,000.

In other words, the MSCI line is more like an incremental negative mood and narrative in the short term, rather than a quantifiable list of sell-offs.

The company's arguments and MSCI's rationale

Strategy has publicly opposed this classification since August. In its response published on August 31, the company directly requested MSCI to “withdraw its proposal”. There are three core arguments: first, tracking GIMI's fund holdings are only about 13 million shares, accounting for 3.1%, which is insufficient to have a substantial impact; second, “operational” and “non-operating” are not classified as an operating division in the US GAAP, IFRS, and the existing legal framework, and its Bitcoin business has already been reported as an operating division under US accounting standards; third, MSCI essentially retracted the statement Back to back The special proposal for digital asset companies targets digital asset treasury companies in disguise. Saylor and CEO Phong Le publicly stated earlier this year that the plan was discriminatory, arguing that while hurting the company, it would also damage MSCI's credibility as a neutral index provider.

The rationale for MSCI is equally clear: the global stock index originally excludes ETFs, investment funds, BDCs, and other passive investment instruments; the new financial indicators are only used to identify issuers whose legal form is still a listed company but whose economic characteristics are close to investment instruments. One detail that explains the problem — not only crypto companies are on the list, but the UK's uranium investment company Yellow Cake is also among them, indicating that the new standard is formally asset-neutral; however, according to WEEX statistics, 14 of the 22 potentially affected companies are directly related to crypto, accounting for more than 90% of the market capitalization in free circulation, and the actual pressure falls almost entirely on the digital asset treasury side.

Metaplanet's situation can be compared: it held 44,000 bitcoins at the end of September, sold 10,000 and bought back 11,000 in the third quarter to show liquidity to the market, and its capital allocation policy limited Bitcoin exposure to 85% to 90% of total assets. These smaller treasury companies are far less flexible in financing than Strategy after losing passive demand.