Put that bitcoin to work

MSCI wants to remove Strategy and Metaplanet from its global indexes. The industry's response is predictable: bafflement, discrimination, an attack on bitcoin. Almost no one is asking the question that actually matters, which is whether MSCI might have a point. We think it does. And for bitcoin companies, that is the best opening in years to show what they actually do with their digital capital.

The proposal

On August 14, MSCI opened a consultation on what it calls "non-operating companies." The test works in two steps. First, whether operating assets make up more than half of total assets. If they do not, five financial measures come into play: how capital-intensive the operation is, how much cost the business actually incurs, how much cash flow the operation generates, how much of the result comes from revaluing non-operating holdings, and how dependent the company is on external capital. Fail four of the five, and in MSCI's view you do not belong in the index. In a simulation run on May 2026 figures, three companies dropped out: Strategy, Metaplanet, and Yellow Cake. The last of these holds physical uranium and has nothing to do with bitcoin or cryptocurrency. The consultation runs until September 30, a decision follows by October 16 at the latest, and the first effects could show up at the November index review at the earliest.

Not an attack on bitcoin

Last October, MSCI took a different approach. Back then the proposal took explicit aim at bitcoin treasury companies. It named a threshold of fifty percent crypto assets on the balance sheet and listed thirty-nine companies by name. Strategy called that threshold arbitrary and discriminatory, and as far as I am concerned it was right. In January, MSCI withdrew the proposal. What is on the table now says nothing about crypto, and that is exactly what makes it so much harder to refute. The fact that a uranium holder is caught in the same net proves that the question is not about what you hold, but about whether you are a company.

No service, no customer

On August 16, Strategy held 840,447 bitcoin, bought for more than $63 billion. An impressive amount. But what does that bitcoin do? Nothing. There is no service built around it, so there is no cash flow coming out of it either. In recent weeks the company even sold bitcoin to pay the dividend on its preferred shares, twelve percent a year. In traditional finance that structure has a name: a leveraged closed-end fund. Michael Saylor is exceptionally good at financial engineering, and that deserves respect. But financial engineering is not the same as building a business with bitcoin, and the market sees that difference more clearly than the industry does.

What working actually looks like

So what is a bitcoin operating company? A company that puts bitcoin to work as a means of production: miners that supply hashrate and trade their energy contracts at the moments the grid needs them to. A company that builds payment infrastructure: Lightning nodes, settlement rails, clearing in seconds instead of days. A company that uses bitcoin as collateral in real services, where someone gets a loan and the company earns a margin. Go down that road and sooner or later you arrive at lending, liquidity management, and other financial services. That is the irony of Strategy: the liability side of its balance sheet is already that of a credit institution, with preferred shares, dividend obligations, and permanent refinancing. The asset side is a vault. And a vault is not a business.

Saylor has the scale, the balance sheet, and the attention of the entire world. He can do something no one else can. The question is no longer how much bitcoin you hold. The question is what that bitcoin does. Put it to work, and you never have to apply for an exception anywhere, and your company belongs in every index. Bitcoin deserves companies that use bitcoin, not just store it.