MSCI IS DUE TO DECIDE BY OCTOBER 16 WHETHER COMPANIES LIKE STRATEGY ARE “NON-OPERATING” — ITS OWN SIMULATION DELETES STRATEGY, METAPLANET AND YELLOW CAKE — A BITCOIN POLICY INSTITUTE PAPER SAYS THE TEST RESTS ON “OPERATING ASSETS,” A TERM GAAP AND IFRS DO NOT DEFINE

MSCI is expected to decide on or before October 16, 2026 whether companies that mostly hold bitcoin stay in its Global Investable Market Indexes, with changes at the November review. A Bitcoin Policy Institute paper by Conner Brown, "Wall Street's Invisible Committee," says MSCI's own simulation deletes Strategy, Metaplanet and the uranium holder Yellow Cake.

The first version, in October 2025, was a flat line: half of assets in digital assets. The August 2026 version is a "non-operating company" test, a 50% screen on operating assets followed by five financial ratios covering operating assets, operating expenses, operating cash flow, fair-value changes and financing.

The paper's objection is about what can be checked: "'Operating assets' is not a standardized balance-sheet category defined by U.S. GAAP or IFRS, and the consultation provides no asset taxonomy or definition for applying it." A rule built on a term nobody defined is a rule a committee applies by judgment.

That judgment moves money. In 2025, JPMorgan analysts put possible selling of Strategy by MSCI-tracking funds at about $2.8 billion, as Cointelegraph and Bitcoin.com report. Bitcoin itself can be checked on a public ledger. "Operating assets" cannot be checked anywhere. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $84,129.