Strive urges MSCI to rethink Bitcoin-heavy company exclusion
Nasdaq-listed Strive, identified as the 14th-largest publicly listed Bitcoin treasury company, has asked MSCI to reconsider a proposal that would exclude major Bitcoin-holding firms from its equity indexes.
In a letter addressed to MSCI chairman and CEO Henry Fernandez, Strive said the plan to remove companies whose digital asset holdings exceed 50% of total assets would diminish passive investors’ access to growth areas and miss some of the firms the policy aims to target.
Loss of index inclusion could materially affect digital asset treasury companies. JPMorgan analysts have previously estimated that Strategy, a Bitcoin treasury firm included in the MSCI World Index, could face $2.8 billion in outflows if the change is implemented. Strategy chair Michael Saylor has said the company is in discussions with the index provider.
Large Bitcoin holders tied to AI buildout: Strive CEO
Strive CEO Matt Cole said that major Bitcoin miners, including MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms and Hut 8 — all potentially affected by the proposed exclusion — are rapidly expanding and repurposing data centers to supply power and infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads.
Source: Matt Cole
“Many analysts contend that access to power — rather than semiconductors — is becoming the main constraint in the AI race. Bitcoin miners are well positioned to meet that need,” Cole said. “Even as AI revenue grows, these companies will still hold Bitcoin, and your exclusion would remain, limiting clients’ participation in one of the fastest-growing segments of the global economy.”
Bitcoin-linked structured finance is expanding
Cole added that the exclusion would also affect companies such as Strategy and Metaplanet, which provide products similar to structured notes tied to Bitcoin returns that are offered by JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
“Bitcoin structured finance is as much a core business for us as it is for JPMorgan. We, like other Bitcoin-focused firms, have been clear that we intend to make this our primary vertical. It would be asymmetric to compete with traditional financiers while facing a higher cost of capital caused by passive index penalties on the very Bitcoin that enables these offerings,” he said.
A 50% Bitcoin threshold is impractical
Cole argued the 50% threshold would be difficult to implement because linking index eligibility to a volatile asset could cause companies to move in and out of indexes, increasing management costs and tracking error. He also noted challenges in determining when firms reach the 50% level, as many gain digital asset exposure through multiple instruments.
“The question is not theoretical. Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., holder of the tenth-largest public Bitcoin treasury, did not appear on your preliminary exclusion list because its spot holdings were just under 50% of total assets,” Cole said. “Yet Trump Media is absent primarily because it is the first large treasury to seek significant digital asset exposure via derivatives and ETFs.”
Strive proposed that MSCI introduce an “ex-digital asset treasury” variant of its existing indexes. “Asset owners that prefer to avoid these companies could select those benchmarks, while others could continue to use the standard indices that best reflect the full investable equity universe.”
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