Strive Asset Management is pushing back hard against a new proposal from MSCI that could reshape how public companies with large Bitcoin treasuries are treated in mainstream equity benchmarks. Under the proposed approach, companies whose Bitcoin holdings exceed 50% of total assets could be excluded from major stock indexes. For firms that have made BTC a meaningful part of their balance-sheet strategy, this is far more than a technical methodology update. It could directly affect index inclusion, passive fund ownership, valuation, and market access.
In a letter addressed to MSCI CEO Henry Fernandez, Strive argued that the proposal could create uneven outcomes across jurisdictions because Bitcoin is not accounted for the same way everywhere. U.S. companies generally report under U.S. GAAP, while many international companies use IFRS. As a result, two firms with similar economic Bitcoin exposure could appear very different on paper, creating inconsistent eligibility outcomes in global index construction. Strive’s criticism is that MSCI would not be creating a neutral screen, but rather a framework that advantages some accounting regimes over others.
Rather than rewriting the rules for broad benchmarks, Strive urged MSCI to rely on optional “ex-digital-asset treasury” index variants. The firm’s point is that investors who want to avoid companies with meaningful digital-asset exposure should have that choice through customized benchmark products, without altering the core indexes used widely across the market. Strive noted that comparable exclusions already exist in areas such as energy and tobacco, which suggests to the firm that investor preference can be accommodated without changing the definition of what belongs in a general equity benchmark.
Strive’s position is also informed by its own balance sheet. The firm is the 14th-largest public corporate Bitcoin holder and has more than 7,500 BTC on its books. Its executives said MSCI’s proposal would “depart from index neutrality” and asked the index provider to “let the market decide” how Bitcoin-heavy companies should be valued and classified. That language goes to the center of the dispute: should benchmark providers merely reflect listed-market reality, or should they actively filter out business models tied too closely to digital assets?
Founded in 2022 by Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks, Strive has framed its mission as an effort to “depoliticize corporate America.” In this case, that broader mission appears in financial form. The company is effectively arguing that embedding a Bitcoin-specific exclusion rule into major indexes is not a neutral risk-management exercise, but a policy judgment about what kinds of companies deserve broad institutional representation.
How MSCI’s proposal could affect Strive, Strategy, and other Bitcoin treasury firms
One of the most closely watched names in this debate is Strategy, which the article says holds 650,000 BTC. According to JPMorgan, exclusion from MSCI indexes alone could trigger around $2.8 billion in passive outflows from Strategy. If other index providers adopt similar standards, the total passive selling pressure could increase to $8.8 billion. These numbers help explain why the debate matters so much. Index eligibility is not symbolic. It can materially affect fund ownership, liquidity, and how institutional capital reaches listed companies.
In its letter, Strive criticized the proposed 50% threshold as “unjustified, overbroad and unworkable.” A central part of that criticism is that many Bitcoin treasury companies are still real operating businesses. They are not necessarily shell entities, closed-end vehicles, or passive holding structures. The article specifically points to businesses involved in AI data centers, structured finance, and cloud infrastructure. In Strive’s view, a balance sheet with substantial Bitcoin exposure should not automatically erase the operating identity of a listed company.
The same point becomes clearer when looking at miners that have been diversifying. The article names MARA, Riot, Hut 8, and CleanSpark as companies pivoting toward renting out excess power and computing capacity. That means their economic profile is evolving beyond pure Bitcoin mining. Some now combine digital-asset exposure with infrastructure services, energy optimization, and high-performance compute businesses. If index methodology focuses too narrowly on the percentage of BTC on the balance sheet, it may fail to capture how these companies are actually generating revenue and repositioning themselves in the market.
Strive also compares Bitcoin-heavy firms to companies in more established sectors. Broad equity indexes do not exclude energy firms simply because a large portion of their value depends on oil reserves. Likewise, gold miners are not pushed out because their economics depend heavily on metal prices. By that logic, applying a special exclusion rule to Bitcoin-linked companies would amount to treating digital-asset exposure differently from commodity exposure in other industries. For Strive, that is evidence that the proposal is not neutral benchmark design, but an embedded investment opinion.
Another complication is volatility and implementation. Bitcoin’s price can move sharply from quarter to quarter, which means a company could cross above the 50% line during one reporting period and fall below it in the next. If index inclusion depends on that threshold, the same company might be added and removed repeatedly as BTC price fluctuations change the accounting profile of total assets. That kind of churn could increase turnover for passive products and create instability in benchmark membership. The issue becomes even more difficult when derivatives or structured products are involved, because headline holdings may not reflect total economic exposure.
Strive warned that overly strict rules could push innovation outside the United States. Because international companies may benefit from IFRS treatment while U.S. issuers are measured under U.S. GAAP, the proposal could unintentionally disadvantage American public markets. In Strive’s view, that would not just penalize a subset of companies today; it could discourage the development of future Bitcoin-backed financial products and drive new structures into friendlier jurisdictions. The broader concern is that benchmark policy could end up shaping where digital-asset-related corporate innovation happens.
MSCI is expected to announce its decision on January 15, 2026, ahead of its February index review. Strive is only one of several firms lobbying against the proposal, but its case is built around a clear set of themes: fairness, neutrality, and investor choice. Instead of restricting market access through broad exclusion, Strive wants benchmark providers to preserve optionality and let investors decide whether they want exposure to companies with large Bitcoin treasuries.
Last week, Michael Saylor of Strategy also weighed in on the broader MSCI index dispute. He emphasized that Strategy is a publicly traded operating company with a roughly $500 million software business and a treasury strategy that uses Bitcoin. He said it is not a fund, not a trust, and not a holding company. That distinction matters because much of the argument turns on classification. Are these firms operating businesses that happen to hold significant BTC, or should they be treated as quasi-investment vehicles? How MSCI answers that question could influence not just index membership, but how the market understands an emerging category of public company altogether.