Nasdaq-listed Strive, the 14th largest public company holding Bitcoin, has urged MSCI to rethink its plan to remove firms with heavy digital asset exposure from its indexes. In a letter to MSCI chair and CEO Henry Fernandez, Strive said the proposal would narrow investor access to fast-growing areas of the market and would fail to target the firms MSCI intends to screen out.
Strive argued that cutting companies whose digital assets exceed half of their total holdings would reshape index weightings in ways that could harm passive investors. Analysts have already warned that the move could hurt the sector.
JPMorgan recently noted that Strategy, a large Bitcoin treasury firm included in the MSCI World Index, could lose around $2.8 billion if the rule takes effect. Strategy chair Michael Saylor has said the firm is already speaking with MSCI about the matter.
Bitcoin Miners Move Into AI Power Supply
Strive CEO Matt Cole said the proposal overlooks how major Bitcoin miners are expanding into AI-related services. He pointed to MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms, and Hut 8, each of which is now directing part of its data center footprint toward providing power and infrastructure for AI computing.
Cole said many researchers now believe the AI race depends more on access to power than on chips. Bitcoin miners, he said, have the ability to meet that demand because they already run large, energy-heavy operations.
He added that even if these companies grow their AI income, they will still hold Bitcoin, so the MSCI plan would keep excluding them, limiting investor access to a rapidly growing part of the global economy.
Concerns Over Thresholds and Market Impact
Cole also said the exclusion would affect firms like Strategy and Metaplanet, which offer products that track Bitcoin in ways similar to structured notes issued by large banks. He argued that applying indexing penalties to these companies would leave them at a funding disadvantage compared with traditional finance groups.
He added that the 50 percent threshold for digital asset holdings is hard to apply because it would shift frequently with Bitcoin’s price. This could cause firms to move in and out of the index during volatile periods, raising costs for fund managers.
Cole pointed to Trump Media and Technology Group, which holds one of the largest public Bitcoin treasuries but was not on MSCI’s early exclusion list because its spot holdings came in just under the cutoff.
Strive has urged MSCI to consider adding an “ex digital asset treasury” version of its existing indexes so investors who want to avoid such firms can do so while others keep broad market exposure.