US monetary companies agency MSCI’s October talks on a “digital asset treasury firm” got here at a time when the Bitcoin (BTC) publicity construction was already starting to unravel.
By mid-2025, three roughly equally sized channels have poured institutional capital into BTC. A bunch of regulated spot ETFs with greater than $100 billion below administration, a mining operation with built-in BTC publicity, and a brand new group of publicly traded firms whose major enterprise is to carry cryptocurrencies on their steadiness sheets.
MSCI’s proposal targets the third bucket, and in doing so forces a calculation on whether or not these firms are working firms or passive funds disguised as firms.
The proposal itself reads like customary index housekeeping.
MSCI proposed excluding firms with digital asset holdings higher than 50% of whole property from the World Investable Market Index and requested for suggestions on whether or not firms that establish as digital asset vaults or increase capital primarily to build up Bitcoin needs to be topic to comparable therapy.
The session interval will run till December thirty first, and a call might be made by January fifteenth, with implementation scheduled for overview in February 2026.
MSCI frames the query clearly: Do these shares already “exhibit traits much like funding funds” outdoors of fairness benchmarks?
JPMorgan responded by modeling the affect. A November evaluation discovered that Technique Inc. has a market capitalization of about $59 billion, of which about $9 billion is held in passive automobiles that observe main indexes.
Within the situation the place MSCI alone reclassifies its technique, roughly $2.8 billion in passive property can be compelled to promote. Barron’s estimates that if Russell and different suppliers comply with go well with, machine outflows may attain $8.8 billion.
The quantity was billed because the second index shock following the technique’s earlier removing from the S&P 500, sparking a rally. JPMorgan has come below intense scrutiny over front-running, with folks calling for a boycott of the financial institution or short-selling of its inventory.
proxy stock downside
The anger displays deeper tensions over how Bitcoin beta enters conventional portfolios. DLA Piper’s October advisory documented explosive development within the sector.
Greater than 200 publicly traded US firms can have adopted digital asset treasury methods by September 2025, holding an estimated $115 billion in cryptocurrencies, with a complete inventory market capitalization of roughly $150 billion, up from $40 billion a 12 months in the past.
It has round 190 centered on Bitcoin treasuries, with an extra 10-20 holding different tokens. For establishments constrained by mandates prohibiting direct holdings of cryptocurrencies, these shares supplied a workaround to trace BTC via fairness publicity with out breaking compliance guardrails.
Nevertheless, that comfort got here with structural weak point. Many rising market bonds have been financed via convertible bonds or personal placements, and boards confronted strain to promote cash and purchase again shares when inventory costs fell under the worth of their crypto holdings.
The Digital Property Treasury put about $42.7 billion into cryptocurrencies in 2025, with $22.6 billion within the third quarter. Solana-focused Treasuries noticed a 40% pullback in whole internet asset worth from $3.5 billion to $2.1 billion, and even when solely a small portion of the place have been unwound, liquidations may happen, amounting to $4.3 billion to $6.4 billion.
On the similar time, Spot Bitcoin ETF surpassed $100 billion in property below administration in lower than a 12 months after its launch, and BlackRock’s IBIT alone holds greater than $100 billion in BTC, and can maintain roughly 6.8% of the circulating provide by the second half of 2025.
These merchandise supplied purer publicity with out the steadiness sheet leverage and NAV low cost points that plague treasury inventory.
MSCI’s discussions will speed up rotations already underway. BTC publicity will shift from authorities bond shares, that are compelled sellers when inventory valuations break, to regulated ETF wrappers.
For Bitcoin itself, rotation might be impartial and even constructive if ETF inflows offset Treasury gross sales. For shares, liquidity is clearly damaging.
As for BTC’s dominance, Bitcoin’s structural superiority might be reinforcing. The one product that monetary establishments rotate is sort of solely BTC. On the similar time, some treasuries have been beginning to experiment with Solana, Ethereum, and different tokens.
| firm | ticker | Position in BTC publicity | MSCI standing in DAT overview | Approximate MSCI Dad or mum Index Weight* | Passively managed property in danger (order of magnitude) | liquidity notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| technique | MSTR | Digital Asset Treasury BTC | Flagged as core DAT candidate | ≈ 0.02% of MSCI IMI | ≈ $2.8 billion MSCI linked. Whole as much as roughly $8-9 billion | Primary node of compelled sale. Company for BTC beta in shares. |
| riot platform | riot | BTC miner/proxy inventory | Printed on provisional DAT listing | It’s extremely small. Enter from terminal | A whole lot of hundreds of thousands as an alternative of billions | Delicate to liquidity. ETF/thematic possession share is excessive. |
| marathon digital | Mara | BTC miner/proxy inventory | Printed on provisional DAT listing | It’s extremely small. Enter from terminal | A whole lot of hundreds of thousands as an alternative of billions | Profile much like RIOT. Floating level, which is extra risky. |
| metaplanet | 3350 | BTC Treasury (Japan) | MSCI has frozen upgrades/adjustments | small; small cap/nation index | tens of hundreds of thousands | Examples outdoors the US. It reveals the worldwide scope of the principles. |
| Uppercase B and different DATs | varied | DAT/miners that use giant quantities of BTC | Featured on a broader 30-40 identify DAT watchlist | individually small | Collective “lengthy tail” | Collectively they kind a second layer of liquidity danger. |
Liquidity below stress
The mechanical circulation on the inventory facet is easy. Index funds that benchmark MSCI can’t exchange their methods with Bitcoin ETFs. These rotate to fill the index slot.
From a BTC perspective, it is a inventory liquidity shock and never a coin merchandising shock, however the second-order results are extra vital.
Confronted with weakening fairness assist and tighter funding situations, treasury firms will doubtless cut back future purchases and even liquidate their holdings to shore up their steadiness sheets.
The technique suggests not promoting BTC under any threshold. As an alternative, the corporate is reinventing itself as a “Bitcoin-backed structured finance firm,” reinforcing the concept that it’s an working enterprise slightly than a fund.
Smaller authorities bonds with weaker steadiness sheets might lack that luxurious.
Russell and FTSE Russell haven’t begun formal discussions on digital asset treasury, however JPMorgan’s $8.8 billion outflow situation assumes that different giant suppliers will converge on MSCI’s therapy over time.
FTSE Russell continues to be closely concerned in digital asset indexing on the token facet. Nevertheless, that fairness legislation doesn’t but classify authorities bonds as a separate class and they’re nonetheless handled equally to sector shares.
DLA Piper’s suggestion will be learn as a warning that gatekeepers, together with regulators and indexing firms, are trying extra carefully at Treasury disclosures, but it surely additionally confirms the potential for a wave of copycating, even when it hasn’t already begun.
MSCI’s transfer forces monetary establishments to determine whether or not Bitcoin belongs in an fairness benchmark or a devoted crypto product.
The talks are methodological, however the stakes are structural. This may decide whether or not BTC beta is positioned in ETFs and the treasuries of some giant firms, or in a extra decentralized ecosystem of small steadiness sheet holders who’re compelled to change into sellers when the market turns.
The reply might be to restructure not simply the index weights, however the very focus of possession in Bitcoin.
