It's a bit of a surprise to see Sinphar Pharmaceutical show up in this MSCI document. The Taiwanese drugmaker works in cell therapy, new drug development, and investments in international medical funds — nothing to do with bitcoin. Yet it's named alongside Strategy and Metaplanet. The only difference: Sinphar is on the "watch list," while the other three have gone straight onto the removal list.
That's what makes this proposal so interesting — MSCI never once writes the words "digital assets," yet manages to catch the exact same group of companies using a completely different set of rules, plus a few extra.
New rules, same underlying question: "Are you actually running a business?"
The new proposal works in two steps. Step one is a core screen: if operating assets divided by total assets exceeds 50%, the company passes and stops there. Companies that fail move to step two, where they're tested against five financial ratios: operating asset intensity below 20%, operating expense intensity below 5%, negative operating cash flow, an outsized share of value coming from non-operating fair value changes, and heavy reliance on capital raised in the past 12 months specifically to accumulate assets. Failing four out of five disqualifies a company for inclusion.
In the document, MSCI describes non-operating companies as ones that create value by accumulating and holding non-operating assets, spend little on actual operations and generate little operating cash, have performance driven by market volatility rather than revenue activity, and grow through external capital rather than organic operations. None of that mentions bitcoin — but it reads almost like a blueprint for a digital asset treasury company.
There's also a buffer built in: existing index constituents only get removed after failing the criteria for two consecutive review periods, while companies not yet in the index get shut out after failing just once. That's why the list is split into two tiers — "direct removal" and "public watch."
Simulated with May 2026 data: three removed, three on watch
The direct removal list includes Strategy, Metaplanet, and UK-based uranium holding company Yellow Cake — a firm whose entire business is buying and stockpiling physical uranium in anticipation of price gains, with zero exposure to crypto. Strategy is a large-cap, with a free-float adjusted market cap of $23.931 billion; Yellow Cake and Metaplanet are both small-caps, at $1.807 billion and $654 million respectively. The fact that all three land on the same list shows the new standard is asset-neutral — whether you're stockpiling bitcoin or uranium, if you're "buying and holding without actually running a business," you're getting cut.
The public watch list includes Sinphar Pharmaceutical, Turkey's Lydia Holding, and America's SharpLink — companies that failed the latest reporting period's criteria but haven't yet hit the two-period threshold. Sinphar's free-float adjusted market cap is $673 million.
Compared to last year's version, the gap is striking. The October 2025 proposal set the threshold at "digital assets exceeding 50% of total assets," and an initial review flagged 39 companies — even actual miners like Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital got swept in, triggering industry pushback. MSCI ultimately announced on January 15, 2026 that it would maintain the status quo. This time, using financial ratios instead, only three companies in the ACWI IMI index would be removed. The focus isn't "what are you holding" but "are you actually running a business."
The comment period closes September 30, 2026, with MSCI expected to announce results on or before October 16. If approved, changes would be folded into November's index review. JPMorgan estimated last year that removing Strategy from MSCI-tracked funds could trigger roughly $2.8 billion in passive selling pressure — a figure based on end-of-2025 market cap, with the actual scale still pending final methodology. Strategy currently holds 840,447 bitcoin, worth roughly $53.18 billion on paper; after selling 3,327 bitcoin over two consecutive weeks, the CEO has publicly pledged to keep buying more before year-end.
