MSCI Rule Puts Strategy’s Bitcoin Funding Channel in Focus

MSCI’s November review could put Strategy Inc’s place in global indexes at risk, drawing attention to how the company has used stock sales to finance its Bitcoin purchases.

The revised MSCI index screen, adopted Oct. 15, first checks whether a company has substantial operating assets. Companies that fail this test are assessed against five non-industry-specific financial ratios; four or more flags make a company ineligible. Existing constituents must show a screen failure in both of their two latest annual filing periods to be removed. MSCI may also consider the newest interim filing when available.

Between Oct. 12 and 18, Strategy added 267 BTC at a total cost of $22.1 million, lifting its holdings to 848,517 BTC. Net proceeds from MSTR common stock sales provided $22 million, with cash covering the remaining $100,000. Strategy also repurchased $193.1 million of STRC preferred shares during that week. In a separate action on Oct. 19, its board approved raising the repurchase authorization from $2 billion to $3 billion.

MSCI deferred an earlier proposal to exclude digital asset treasury companies in January and later opened a broader consultation. A simulation using May 2026 data listed Strategy, Yellow Cake and Metaplanet as hypothetical deletions from the MSCI ACWI IMI. The Oct. 15 decision made minor changes to the proposal. An earlier $2.8 billion potential-outflow estimate was tied to a test targeting companies whose digital assets equaled at least half of their total assets. That figure does not measure the adopted screen, and MSCI has not issued a new outflow estimate for it.

An index exclusion would not require Strategy to sell Bitcoin. If pressure tied to index eligibility weakened MSTR shares, however, future stock sales could raise less per share for additional purchases.

MSCI plans to publish its final list of affected companies Nov. 11. Any index changes are scheduled to take effect after the Nov. 30 market close.