Nasdaq-listed Strive, the 14th-largest public Bitcoin treasury firm, has asked MSCI to reconsider a proposal to exclude companies whose digital asset holdings exceed 50% of total assets from its indexes. In a letter to MSCI chairman and CEO Henry Fernandez, Strive warned that such an exclusion would reduce passive investors’ exposure to important growth sectors and fail to capture the companies it targets.
Stripping digital-asset-heavy firms from MSCI indexes could seriously harm treasury-centric businesses. JPMorgan analysts warned that Strategy, a Bitcoin treasury firm included in the MSCI World Index, could lose about $2.8 billion if MSCI implements the proposal. Strategy chair Michael Saylor has said the company is engaging with MSCI on the matter.
Strive CEO Matt Cole argued that major Bitcoin miners — including MARA, Riot Platforms and Hut 8, which could be affected by the exclusion — are rapidly diversifying their data centers to provide power and infrastructure for AI computing. Cole said many analysts now view the AI race as constrained more by access to power than by semiconductors, putting miners in a favorable position to meet rising demand. He added that even as AI revenue grows, these companies will retain Bitcoin holdings, so an exclusion would prevent investors from participating in a fast-growing part of the economy.
Cole also noted the expansion of Bitcoin structured finance. Companies like Strategy and Metaplanet offer products similar to structured notes linked to Bitcoin returns from institutions such as JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Strive contends Bitcoin structured finance is a core business and that excluding Bitcoin-heavy companies would be asymmetric, penalizing firms that compete with traditional financiers while bearing a higher cost of capital due to index-driven penalties.
Strive criticized the proposed 50% threshold as impractical. Tying index inclusion to a volatile asset would cause companies to “flicker” in and out of indexes, increasing management costs and tracking error. Measuring when digital asset exposure crosses 50% is also complex, since companies gain exposure through various instruments, including derivatives and ETFs. Cole pointed to Trump Media & Technology Group, which did not appear on MSCI’s preliminary exclusion list because its spot Bitcoin holdings were just under 50% despite seeking significant digital-asset exposure via other means.
Rather than a broad exclusion, Strive proposed that MSCI create an “ex-digital asset treasury” variant of existing indexes. That would let asset owners who want to avoid these companies choose the ex-digital-asset benchmarks, while others could continue using standard indices that better reflect the full investable equity universe.
