On Thursday 15 October 2026, index provider MSCI confirmed that “non-operating companies” will be ineligible for its Global Investable Market Indexes from the close of 30 November, a rule that Decrypt and CryptoTimes report is aimed at bitcoin treasury companies such as Strategy and Metaplanet (Decrypt, 16 October 2026; CryptoTimes, 16 October 2026). Strategy shares closed Friday at $136.83, down 9.6% on the day (Yahoo Finance close, our calculation). This guide gives you five plain-language checks for deciding whether a company with a pile of bitcoin looks more like a business or more like a fund, and then scores Strategy on each using its published second-quarter results. Nothing here is a prediction of what MSCI will decide on 11 November.
What MSCI actually announced
According to the reports above, MSCI adopted, with minor modifications, the proposal from the consultation it launched on 3 August. A company first faces a “core screen” of whether its balance sheet contains substantial operating assets. Companies that fail then face an exclusion test of five financial ratios, named in the reports as operating asset intensity, expense intensity, operating cash flow, non-operating fair value intensity and capital dependence. A company that is flagged on four or more of the five becomes ineligible. Cut-offs are looser for current index members than for new candidates, and current members are removed only if they fail in both of their two most recent annual filing periods; outside companies are blocked if they fail in either.
Timing matters. MSCI is expected to publish the list of affected companies on 11 November, with changes applying at the close of 30 November. The rule replaces temporary measures adopted after MSCI shelved its earlier digital-asset-treasury proposal on 6 January 2026, which covered firms whose digital assets were 50% or more of total assets. In a May 2026 simulation on its ACWI Investable Market Index, MSCI’s test produced three deletions: Strategy, Metaplanet and the London-listed uranium vehicle Yellow Cake, according to CryptoTimes. Ethereum treasury company SharpLink is on a proposed watchlist. Importantly, MSCI has not named individual companies as removed, and our sources do not publish exact formulas or cut-offs for the five ratios. The checks below are therefore our own plain-language proxies, built from the ratio names, not MSCI’s methodology.
Check 1: Where does the revenue come from? (operating asset intensity)
The question behind “operating asset intensity” is how much of a company’s balance sheet consists of assets that run a business: factories, software, inventory, receivables. For a treasury company, look at the balance sheet in the latest 10-Q and compare the digital-asset line with everything else. Then compare revenue to the assets. A company whose assets are almost all one coin, and whose revenue is a rounding error against them, looks like a holding vehicle on this test.
Strategy’s score: in the second quarter of 2026, Strategy reported total revenues of $122.4 million, of which subscription services were $62.9 million, against a digital-asset cost basis of $63.94 billion at 30 June (Strategy second-quarter results, 30 July 2026). Revenue was therefore about 0.19% of the cost basis in one quarter (our arithmetic: 122.368 ÷ 63,939.306), or roughly 0.77% if you annualise it. That is an illustration, not MSCI’s ratio, but the direction is clear: on this test Strategy looks like a fund with a software business attached.
Check 2: Strip out the fair-value marks (non-operating fair value intensity)
Companies that hold bitcoin at fair value report price swings through their income statement. The question is how much of reported profit or loss comes from those marks rather than from operations. Find the “unrealized gain (loss) on digital assets” line and subtract it from operating income or loss to see what is left.
Strategy’s score: Strategy reported an operating loss of $8.33 billion in the second quarter, of which $8.315 billion was the unrealized loss on digital assets, which is included in operating expenses. Taking that mark out leaves an operating loss of about $15.6 million (our arithmetic: 8,330.950 − 8,315.365, in millions), which is the number that describes the software business. The point of the test is that the reported figure is almost entirely a bitcoin-price effect. In a rising quarter, the same mark would flatter the result by a similar amount.
Check 3: Does the business generate cash? (operating cash flow)
Operating cash flow answers a simple question: does the activity of running the company bring in more cash than it spends? On the cash-flow statement, look at “net cash provided by (used in) operating activities” and compare it with the cash the company needs for interest and preferred dividends. A business that pays its dividends out of share sales rather than operations is financing itself.
Strategy’s score: not rated. The second-quarter earnings release we read does not state operating cash flow, and we have not seen the full 10-Q cash-flow statement, so we do not quote a number. This is a good example of why the check must be done from the filing itself. What we can say is that Strategy has recurring obligations: its convertible notes have an aggregate principal of $6.71 billion at 30 June, and its board has declared daily cash dividends on its STRC preferred stock for each day of November at a 12% annualised rate, payable from 2 November, according to Invezz (Invezz, 16 October 2026).
Check 4: What does it cost to run? (expense intensity)
Expense intensity looks at operating expenses relative to the asset base or revenue. A real operating business spends on staff, sales and research in proportion to what it earns. A pure holding vehicle spends very little because there is little to run, or it spends mostly on financing. Check the operating-expense lines excluding the fair-value mark, and compare them with revenue.
Strategy’s score: this one we can only partly assess. The release shows total revenue of $122.4 million and an operating loss that is $15.6 million away from break-even once the digital-asset mark is removed, which implies operating expenses excluding the mark of roughly $138 million (our arithmetic: 122.4 + 15.6). That is a software company’s cost base, not a bare holding vehicle’s, which is why Strategy argues it is an operating company. Whether that is enough depends on how MSCI’s ratio is defined and on the threshold for existing members, which we do not have.
Check 5: Who pays for the next purchase? (capital dependence)
Capital dependence asks how much the company relies on outside financing to keep going. The practical test is to look at how it funds its bitcoin purchases: operating cash, or new shares, convertibles and preferred stock. In the filing, read the “liquidity and capital resources” section and the at-the-market programme disclosures.
Strategy’s score: high dependence, on our reading of its own reporting. Invezz reported on 16 October that in the week ending 4 October Strategy spent $176 million repurchasing STRC and only $28 million on bitcoin, and that its most recent purchase was 250 BTC for $21.5 million. A 29 June capital framework allows it to sell bitcoin to fund dividends. The company holds 848,250 BTC as of its 12 October update, which at Friday’s $81,500 Coinbase close is about $69.1 billion (our arithmetic: 848,250 × $81,500). The business model depends on investors continuing to buy new securities at a premium to the bitcoin they fund; an index exclusion could narrow that premium, which is the channel through which the rule matters for bitcoin demand.
How big could the selling be?
Estimates differ, and each has a source and a date. JPMorgan estimated in late 2025 that removing Strategy from MSCI indexes could prompt about $2.8 billion of passive outflows, rising to roughly $8.8 billion if other index providers adopted similar rules, according to CryptoTimes. Strategy’s counter-argument, reported by the same outlet, is that funds tracking the MSCI indexes hold about 13 million of its shares, or 3.1% of basic shares outstanding, which it says is less than one day of average trading volume. Strategy’s CEO Phong Le called the proposal “discriminatory, arbitrary, and misguided” in a Bloomberg interview, and Michael Saylor called it discriminatory, Decrypt reported. We cannot reconcile the two estimates from the sources we have.
One distinction is worth stating plainly: index funds selling MSTR shares are not selling bitcoin. The bitcoin held by Strategy and Metaplanet (44,000 BTC as of 30 September, per CryptoTimes) stays on their balance sheets unless the companies choose to sell. The risk to the bitcoin market is indirect, through the companies’ ability to raise money and keep buying. Metaplanet recently sold 10,000 bitcoin and bought back 11,000, according to Decrypt, which shows how actively such companies manage their holdings.
How to use these checks on other companies
Pick any listed company that holds bitcoin and run the five checks from its latest 10-Q or annual report: compare revenue with the digital-asset line, remove the fair-value mark, read the cash-flow statement, divide operating costs by revenue, and trace where the money for each purchase came from. Score each check as “looks like a business”, “looks like a fund” or “cannot tell”. Three or more “fund” answers is a sign that the company would struggle with any screen of this type, but remember that MSCI applies its own cut-offs and a two-year buffer, and that we have not seen them. Our earlier guides on reading treasury-company earnings and checking whether a treasury company bought well cover the underlying filings in more detail, and our 15 August update covers the original consultation.
What to watch next
Four dates matter: 11 November, when MSCI is expected to publish the list; 30 November, when the changes apply; Strategy’s third-quarter results, which will give the next operating-cash-flow and fair-value figures; and any statement from other index providers, because JPMorgan’s larger $8.8 billion estimate depends on them following. Market reaction so far has been on the share price: MSTR closed Friday at $136.83 from $151.29 on Thursday, according to Yahoo Finance data, while bitcoin itself closed down 0.77%. For the day’s wider picture see our market report.
The Coin Bureau video above dates from December 2025, during the earlier phase of the MSCI discussion, and is included for background on the original proposal; the final rule announced on 15 October differs in the details described above.
Method: bitcoin prices, highs, lows and closes are Coinbase Exchange candles (UTC day or UTC hour) pulled by Bitcoin Mastery at about 06:15 UTC on Saturday 17 October 2026; the 17 October candle is still open at that time, so any closing figure quoted is the 16 October close unless stated. US index, ETF, stock and Brent closes are Yahoo Finance daily data or the Associated Press figures cited; other third-party figures are attributed to their source and date. MSCI rule details and the May 2026 simulation come from Decrypt and CryptoTimes (16 October 2026); Strategy’s second-quarter figures come from its 30 July 2026 results release as published on Business Wire. Derived figures (revenue as a share of cost basis, operating loss excluding the digital-asset mark, implied operating expenses, value of holdings at $81,500) are our own arithmetic. The five checks are our plain-language proxies for the five ratio names reported, not MSCI’s formulas.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are volatile and you can lose some or all of the money you put in. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold bitcoin, any exchange-traded fund, any listed security or any other asset, and the technical levels, probabilities and scenarios discussed are descriptions of published data, not forecasts. Do your own research and consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.