BREAKING: MORGAN STANLEY WANTS TO KICK STRATEGY OUT OF $21T MARKET??? | EP 1570

**Nico Moran** (0:02)
Morgan Stanley has officially updated their guidelines, and it's looking like Strategy and MetaPlanet could get kicked out of their indexes. And at this stage, it's looking very likely that $2.8 billion of MSTR would be dumped once this becomes official. But I think the more important questions are, of course, why is this happening now? What does this mean for the price of Strategy? And more importantly, for everyone else and Bitcoin? And I think the timing is very interesting. Does the launch of all of these Wall Street Bitcoin products and the recent moves into the iBit Bitcoin ETF have anything to do with this? Or is this just a blatant attack on Strategy and all of the other Bitcoin Treasury companies?
There is something to be said about this. And really the framing is really interesting to me. They are calling this kind of a non-operational move here and I'll get into that. So anyways, what am I talking about? Let's get into it. So I'm using the block to give you guys the basic coverage. I will show you the PDF and what they're looking at, but Strategy and MetaPlanet could face MSCI index removal under a new proposal. Now, I do want to remind you here that JP Morgan said this over a year ago in November. Well, I guess it's not a year ago. It's about nine months ago. So here, remember, JP Morgan was saying that Strategy should get delisted from the MSCI index. Sailor responded to that. That was one of the big sagas. And if you were around at the time and you were watching closely, that was the time that Strategy really got really got beat up in terms of price, just on the rumors that this could happen. So now it looks like they are on the chopping block. And it's, I hate to say it, most likely they're probably going to get delisted from the MSCI index, which is the Morgan Stanley Corporate International Index, which is basically like a world index of stocks that you should invest in. But anyways, coming back here, let's check this out. So MSCI proposed a new eligibility screen for non-operating companies that could result in Strategy and MetaPlanet being removed from its Global Investable Market indexes. Now, before I even go further, I think it's very interesting that they use that framing, non-operating companies. Now, remember what 21 Capital just said this week. I think it was what, Tuesday or Wednesday, that they are not considering themselves now, or at least moving forward since Jack Mahler's left, a Bitcoin Treasury company, but a Bitcoin operating company. And I don't know if this was preemptive for this idea, but we are obviously seeing an evolution of the Bitcoin Treasury space. As we covered all of last year, Bitcoin Treasury was the new hype cycle. You could argue that it was kind of the ICO bubble of the 2025 bull run. Sorry, I thought I said something different on the day. Where, as we're all seeing, either there's a few things that are going on, either there's not enough space for a lot of Bitcoin Treasury companies, all of the pure Bitcoin play like strategy, aka you just buy Bitcoin, you take people's money to buy Bitcoin, you expect a 30% pump, you give them that 12% spread, or rather you give them 12% and then you take the spread as profit for your company. Either that is the case that there's not that much space for more, basically, strategy copycats, or people don't really want Bitcoin Treasuries, that there's not really space for these at all, that these Bitcoin Treasury playbooks aren't really a good business model to begin with. Now, I think I probably lean a little more towards the first part, where there's probably only going to be a handful of strategies, if that it's going to be strategy, maybe MetaPlanet, maybe there's a strategy in every different market around the world, or maybe not every market around the world, in the major players, there's probably going to be one or a couple of these in every big market. But is there space for all of the strategy copycats? It's looking like that's probably not the case. Unless you differentiate yourself from strategy, you're probably not going to be able to catch up to what Sailor has done with strategy. Now, I think that's why it's an interesting phrase of words here, an interesting choice of words. As we heard, 21 Capital came out and said, we're not a Bitcoin Treasury company, we're going to become a Bitcoin Operating Company, which is the whole idea of needing cash flow. Essentially, the difference would be, I'm not just taking your money to buy Bitcoin and giving you back a little bit, but you invest in a Bitcoin Operating Company because we are trying to essentially get a bunch of Bitcoin companies that are profitable, and as the mother company, we are going to have a huge Bitcoin balance sheet, but we are looking for cash flow positive businesses, which when you think from a individual perspective, from a small business owner, you obviously can't just buy Bitcoin, hold it, and that is your own business. That's why we're seeing strategy sell Bitcoin. You have to have cash flow coming in. You have to have an operating business underlying it, and yes, adding Bitcoin to your balance sheet is a good thing for you personally, but just buying Bitcoin and essentially being like a credit loan or like a bank, probably not going to work for a lot of companies, which is why before even break into all the details, I found it very interesting that the Morgan Stanley Index basically said the same thing. These non-operating businesses are no longer going to be a part of the index that they do, which is, look, actually, I was talking with Sophie before I went live, and all we could really boil this down to is, man, Bitcoin is getting such a beating right now. We have the hardware wallet hacks and leaks. We have the Clarity Act failing. Now, strategies and some more heap about all of the world, sorry, the Wall Street institutions are attacking Bitcoin Treasuries. It's been a brutal bear market. Price is 50% off. Man, what a bear market. Anyway, let's get into this. So, index provider MSCI has opened a consultation that could remove Strategy and MetaPlanet from its global investible market indexes under a proposed methodology for identifying non-operating companies. Again, I think that is the key word here. According to MSCI's latest consultation, a simulation using May 2026 data showed Strategy, MetaPlanet and a uranium investment company, Yellowcake, would be deleted from the MSCI ACWI IMI under the new proposal. Sorry, Yellowcake, I'm a millennial kid growing up with Dave Chappelle, and I'm just thinking of the Yellowcake Black President skit. Anyways, the proposal broadens MSCI's review beyond digital asset treasury companies.