MSCI puts a date on treasury-company selling: October 16 decision, November 2026 review

MSCI has opened a public consultation that could delete Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) and Metaplanet (TYO:3350) from its Global Investable Market Indexes under a proposed category of "non-operating companies" ^[1][2]. Comments close on September 30, 2026, a decision is expected around October 16, and anything adopted takes effect at the November 2026 Index Review ^[3]. The significance is not the idea, which has been circulating for a year, but the calendar: passive selling risk now has a decision date and an execution date attached to it.

The screen has two stages. Per the consultation as reported, an operating-assets test against 50% of total assets determines which firms advance to closer scrutiny ^[7]. That second stage reviews five ratios covering operating asset intensity, expense intensity, cash flow, fair-value changes, and reliance on outside financing for growth ^[8]. Failing to clear at least four of the five means exclusion ^[9]. Strategy, which holds 840,447 BTC worth roughly $53.18 billion ^[10], would have tripped all five ratios on its FY2025 filings ^[12]. MSCI named Strategy, Metaplanet and UK uranium stockpiler Yellow Cake as certain deletions if the proposal passes ^[4], and applied to May 2026 data the screen would have removed all three from the ACWI IMI index ^[17]. SharpLink, Turkey's Lydia Holdings and Taiwan's Center Laboratories sit on the watchlist ^[5]; SharpLink failed the screen once, and two consecutive annual failures convert to exclusion ^[13].

Notably, MSCI did not single out crypto reserve firms or digital asset treasuries in the August 2026 paper ^[6]. That is a deliberate change of tack. The October 2025 version went directly at DAT firms with at least half their assets in crypto ^[14]; MSCI dropped that cutoff in February after investors questioned whether a plain asset test could distinguish an operating company from an investment vehicle ^[15]. The replacement ratio screen is asset-agnostic, which is how a uranium holder ends up in the same bucket as two bitcoin balance sheets ^[15].

Size matters here more than principle. MSCI puts the value of inclusion at $2 billion to $2.8 billion of inflows for firms that make the cut, with excluded names facing the reverse as tracking funds sell what they can no longer hold ^[16]. Against Strategy's free-float market value of $23.93 billion ^[11], a flow of that magnitude is roughly 8% to 12% of the tradable stock ^[2], and the bitcoin position is about 2.2 times the free float ^[1] - a structure in which index-driven equity selling and the asset it funds are not independent variables. Strategy has argued the classification is wrong, telling MSCI in a December 2025 letter that it runs an active enterprise building bitcoin-backed credit instruments and operating analytics software rather than holding a static pile of coins ^[18].

Two weeks separate the comment deadline from the expected decision ^[3], so the useful signal arrives in mid-October rather than November. Watch whether MSCI holds the four-of-five threshold or softens it under comment pressure, since a five-of-five bar would likely still catch Strategy on its FY2025 numbers ^[12] but changes the margin for everyone else. Watch SharpLink's next annual screen, which is the test of whether the watchlist is a queue or a holding pen ^[13]. And watch whether the named firms adjust asset mix or disclosure before the reference data is drawn. MSCI has said the consultation guarantees none of its proposals, and neither Strategy nor Metaplanet has been removed ^[19].