For several weeks, investors had been concerned about a potential exclusion of companies with Bitcoin and crypto treasury strategies from the MSCI index universe. It is now official: MSCI has announced that it will not implement the controversial exclusion proposal as part of its February 2026 index review.
Back in October, MSCI said it was considering excluding treasury-focused companies whose balance sheets consist of more than 50% crypto assets. Such a move would have clearly affected MicroStrategy, the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin treasury holder.
In addition to the Nasdaq-100, MSTR shares are included in the MSCI USA and MSCI World indices, allowing the company to benefit from passive inflows via ETFs tracking those benchmarks. Potential outflows in the event of exclusion were estimated at up to $2.8 billion.
Michael Saylor and other corporate treasury representatives actively opposed the potential exclusion. The MicroStrategy founder previously stated:
“Restricting passive index investment in BTC today would be comparable to restricting investment in oil and oil rigs in the 1900s, radio spectrum and mobile towers in the 1980s, or computing and data centers in the 2000s.”
The company is now celebrating the decision in a new post on X:
“A strong outcome for neutral index methodology and economic reality. Thank you to our investors and the Bitcoin community.”
MSTR shares rose 3.9% in pre-market trading to $164, though they remain nearly 60% below last year’s levels. Meanwhile, the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin is correcting by 1.9% to around $91,600.
That said, the issue of excluding treasury-focused companies is not fully settled. In a statement, the index provider noted:
“MSCI intends to conduct a broader consultation on the treatment of non-operating companies more generally.”
Overall, the firm aims to measure the performance of operating businesses and may exclude companies whose primary activity is investment-oriented rather than operational.
