Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), one of the world's largest index providers, is moving forward with a proposal that could remove bitcoin treasury giant Strategy from its global equity benchmarks.

The index maker said Thursday that it "will implement the proposal to define and classify non-operating companies as ineligible for inclusion in the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes."

"MSCI will implement the proposal to define and classify non-operating companies as ineligible for inclusion in the MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes, as set out in the consultation announced on August 3, 2026, with minor modifications," the statement read, according to an official announcement.

"The changes will be implemented as part of the November 2026 Index Review, which will take effect as of the close of November 30, 2026."

Decisions of this kind carry weight beyond MSCI's own listings: funds that replicate its Global Investable Market Indexes build their portfolios around the same constituent lists, so a company's removal ripples through the passive products that track the benchmarks.

The bitcoin treasury firm had previously blasted the idea, calling it "misguided" and "flawed." In August, the company said of the proposal: "Bitcoin doesn't need MSCI. Neither does Strategy." Strategy did not immediately respond to MSCI's decision.

MSCI's move will not immediately strip Strategy from its Global Investable Market Indexes, but future tests could end up excluding the company. If Strategy is dropped from the index, it would mean fewer institutional investors can or will hold the stock, since trackers of the benchmarks would have to reflect the change in their own holdings. The immediate question is how the new non-operating company definition will be applied when the November 2026 Index Review takes effect.

In 2025, MSCI proposed excluding from its indices all companies whose digital-asset holdings represent 50% or more of total assets — a line of thinking that places bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy at the center of the debate over how major indexes should treat listed vehicles built around crypto holdings.

Strategy — formerly MicroStrategy — is an enterprise software company that pivoted to buying and holding bitcoin in 2020. It first bought the cryptocurrency to protect shareholders, but has since accumulated the asset aggressively and is now the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, 848,250 BTC worth $69.2 billion at current prices. That business model, in which investors buy the Nasdaq-listed shares (MSTR) to gain heightened exposure to bitcoin's performance, is the structure the revised classification rules are designed to evaluate. On Friday, the company's stock was trading more than 6% lower.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Mathew Di Salvo.