Strategy and Metaplanet lose their MSCI index seats at the close of Nov. 30. Strategy leaves the USA Index; Metaplanet, a Tokyo-listed bitcoin treasury firm, leaves the Japan Small Cap Index. The funds that track those benchmarks have to sell the stock they hold, about $1.6B of shares that need new buyers.
The deletions come from a new screen for "non-operating" companies that MSCI adopted on Oct. 15. Strategy and Metaplanet are among six securities on the final impact list published on Nov. 11, alongside the UK's Yellow Cake and Agronomics, Iceland's Skel Fjarfestingafelag, and US-listed Upexi. Another 19 sit on a watchlist.
The methodology first asks whether a company holds substantial operating assets, then applies five financial ratio tests. It replaced interim rules aimed at firms whose digital assets made up at least half of total assets. Before a current member can be removed, it has to fail that screen in each of its two most recent annual filing periods.
Nothing here touches the bitcoin. Strategy still holds 850,364 BTC, worth $62.6B, and the exclusion doesn't force Strategy to sell its bitcoin or delist the shares. It redirects who owns them.
The size of the forced selling is disputed
Funds tracking MSCI's global investable indexes hold about 13M Strategy shares, or 3.1% of basic shares outstanding. Strategy's own consultation response and BloFin Research landed on the same figure.
JPMorgan went higher, estimating in November 2025 that exclusion could trigger about $2.8B in outflows, rising to $8.8B if other index providers followed. That math rests on an initial MSCI proposal, not the final rules used this time.
Estimates Of Forced Selling From Strategy Vary Widely
Estimated passive fund outflows from MSCI exclusion, $B, as of Nov. 12, 2026. JPMorgan's Nov. 2025 estimate was based on an initial MSCI proposal, not the final rules.
Bar chart. Outflows ($B). Strategy / BloFin: Outflows ($B) $1.6. JPMorgan (Initial): Outflows ($B) $2.8. JPMorgan (If others follow): Outflows ($B) $8.8.
Source: CoinDesk
Independent bitcoin analyst Derin Olenik sees damage beyond the flows, calling it a blow to the institutional adoption narrative the treasury model leans on.
Why the funding machine is the bigger question
Strategy's bitcoin playbook funds purchases with convertible notes, preferred stock, and common shares. It works when the stock trades above its multiple of net asset value, or mNAV, which compares what the market pays for the company against the value of its coins.
That premium has compressed from a 3.4x peak in November 2024 to roughly 1.08x. Near 1x, new equity issuance adds little for existing holders. Below it, issuance dilutes them.
The shift already shows up in the company's spending. In the week ended Nov. 8, Strategy raised $283.8M by selling 2.05M common shares, but put only $81.9M toward bitcoin. Most of the rest, $188.3M, went to buying back STRC preferred stock. The filing showed a $4.77B cash reserve and no bitcoin sales.
Strategy executives have called MSCI's treatment of digital asset treasuries "discriminatory", arguing in a September letter that exclusion would harm MSCI's reputation as a neutral provider. Ethereum treasury firm SharpLink escaped the November small-cap deletions.
The announced rebalance now has a date, and benchmark funds have until Nov. 30 to act.
