Strive Asset Management has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of MSCI’s latest index proposal. Under the plan, companies whose bitcoin holdings account for more than 50% of total assets could be removed from major equity benchmarks. On the surface, that may look like a technical methodology update. In practice, however, it raises a much larger question for public markets: how should traditional index providers treat listed companies that increasingly use bitcoin as part of their treasury strategy?
In a letter addressed to MSCI CEO Henry Fernandez, Strive argued that the proposal risks producing uneven results around the world. The main reason is accounting treatment. Bitcoin is not reported the same way under U.S. GAAP and IFRS, which means companies with economically similar exposure could end up being treated very differently for index eligibility purposes. Strive’s position is that methodology should not create distortions simply because jurisdictions use different reporting standards.
Rather than redefining the eligibility rules of broad benchmark indexes, Strive urged MSCI to rely on optional “ex-digital-asset treasury” index variants. Those kinds of tailored products already exist in traditional sectors, including areas such as energy and tobacco. In other words, investors who want benchmarks that screen out digital-asset treasury exposure already have a framework for doing so. Strive argues that this preference should remain optional, not embedded in core market benchmarks used across the investment industry.
The issue is not abstract for Strive itself. The Nasdaq-listed firm is the 14th-largest public corporate bitcoin holder, with more than 7,500 BTC on its balance sheet. Its executives said the proposed approach would “depart from index neutrality” and asked MSCI to “let the market decide” how bitcoin-heavy companies should be valued and classified. That phrasing captures the core of the firm’s objection: benchmark providers should reflect market composition, not make a top-down judgment about which treasury strategies are acceptable.
Strive was co-founded in 2022 by Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks. The company has framed its broader mission as an effort to “depoliticize corporate America.” Its criticism of MSCI fits that theme. From Strive’s perspective, excluding bitcoin treasury companies from broad indexes would inject a policy preference into an area that should remain focused on neutrality, comparability, and investor choice.
How the MSCI proposal could affect firms like Strive and Strategy
The potential impact extends well beyond Strive alone. One of the highest-profile examples is Strategy, which according to the article holds 650,000 BTC. JPMorgan estimates that exclusion from MSCI indexes could trigger approximately $2.8 billion in passive outflows from Strategy by itself. If other index providers were to adopt similar methodology changes, the total passive outflow could climb to $8.8 billion. That is why this debate matters not only for corporate treasury policy, but also for capital flows, liquidity, and valuation in public markets.
Strive sharply criticized the 50% threshold, calling it “unjustified, overbroad and unworkable.” The firm’s point is that many companies with substantial bitcoin on their balance sheets are not passive holding shells. They are operating businesses with real revenue lines, employees, infrastructure, and sector-specific strategies. A rule that focuses mainly on balance-sheet composition could therefore misclassify companies whose underlying business models are much broader than their treasury allocation alone suggests.
The article points to examples including AI data centers, structured finance, and cloud infrastructure. It also highlights miners such as MARA, Riot, Hut 8, and CleanSpark, which are increasingly pivoting toward renting out surplus power and compute capacity. That shift matters because it shows how firms originally identified with bitcoin mining are trying to evolve into more diversified infrastructure businesses. Strive argues that a rigid exclusion rule would fail to capture that reality.
To illustrate the inconsistency, Strive compared bitcoin-related businesses with firms in more established commodity sectors. Broad indexes do not exclude energy companies because they hold large oil reserves, nor do they remove gold miners simply because their value depends on metal prices. In Strive’s view, creating a bitcoin-specific screening rule would amount to singling out one form of asset exposure for special treatment. That is precisely what the firm says a neutral benchmark is supposed to avoid.
Another problem is volatility. Because bitcoin’s market price can move sharply, the ratio of bitcoin holdings to total assets may rise above or fall below the 50% line from one quarter to the next. A company could therefore move in and out of eligibility repeatedly, not because its underlying business changed, but because market prices changed. For index users, that would add complexity to tracking, rebalancing, and passive fund management. The issue becomes even harder when derivatives or structured products are involved, since economic exposure may not be fully captured by a simple balance-sheet percentage.
Why Strive says this is really about fairness and index neutrality
At the center of Strive’s argument is the idea of index neutrality. Broad benchmarks are typically expected to represent the investable market as objectively as possible. If some investors want to reduce or remove digital-asset exposure, Strive says they should be free to choose specialized screened indexes. But if others want broad market exposure that includes companies with bitcoin treasury strategies, they should not lose that option because of a methodology change driven by one provider’s view of acceptable balance-sheet composition.
In practical terms, index inclusion matters because it influences much more than prestige. Membership in major benchmarks can affect passive fund ownership, ETF demand, institutional allocation, liquidity, and market perception. If a company is excluded from widely followed indexes, that can translate into immediate portfolio selling by passive vehicles that must follow benchmark rules. For firms with significant market capitalization, those flows can become large enough to affect valuation and financing conditions.
Strive also warned that a strict rule could shift innovation away from the United States. Because IFRS and U.S. GAAP treat bitcoin differently, international companies might be positioned more favorably than U.S.-listed firms under the same broad MSCI methodology. That could create a situation in which American markets are penalized more heavily while non-U.S. issuers benefit from accounting differences rather than business fundamentals. For a global index provider, that is a serious concern.
The firm believes the proposal may also stifle the development of new bitcoin-backed financial products. If public companies fear that adopting a bitcoin treasury strategy could cost them broad benchmark inclusion, they may become less willing to innovate in treasury management, structured products, or hybrid operating-and-digital-asset models. Over time, that could reduce experimentation in an area where public companies, asset managers, and capital markets have only recently begun to explore new approaches.
Strive’s preferred alternative is straightforward: keep broad benchmarks broad, and use optional exclusions where needed. That model already exists in other sectors, where screened versions allow investors to avoid specific industries without changing the rules of the core benchmark itself. In Strive’s view, MSCI does not need to redefine what counts as an eligible public company. It only needs to preserve flexibility and allow investors to choose the benchmark variant that matches their own mandate.
MSCI’s timeline and Michael Saylor’s response
MSCI plans to announce its decision on January 15, 2026, ahead of its February index review. That timeline gives market participants a clear focal point. By then, lobbying from issuers, asset managers, and other stakeholders is likely to intensify. Strive is one of several firms arguing against the proposal, but its message has been especially direct: the issue is not about shielding investors from risk, but about preserving fairness, neutrality, and the ability of the market to decide how bitcoin-exposed companies should be treated.
The debate widened further after Michael Saylor of Strategy publicly addressed the controversy last week. He disputed the way some observers were framing the MSCI issue and emphasized that Strategy is a publicly traded operating company, not a fund, trust, or holding company. He also pointed out that the company has a $500 million software business in addition to its bitcoin treasury strategy. The implication is clear: judging a company solely by the size of its BTC holdings may overlook the reality of its operating business.
That distinction may become increasingly important as more listed companies adopt bitcoin on their balance sheets. Some will be treasury-heavy. Others will combine operating businesses with large digital-asset reserves. Traditional finance infrastructure, from accounting to index construction, is now being forced to adapt to those new corporate forms. MSCI’s ruling therefore matters beyond a single methodology update. It could become a landmark precedent for how global markets classify bitcoin treasury companies in the years ahead.