Strive CEO Matt Cole critiques MSCI index framework for ignoring Bitcoin treasuries

Matt Cole, CEO of Strive, fired back at MSCI’s latest attempt to classify companies with significant digital asset holdings, arguing the index giant’s revised framework still fails to recognize Bitcoin treasury operations as legitimate business activities.

Cole’s response, posted on August 14, targets MSCI’s updated consultation proposal, which aims to reassess how firms with large cryptocurrency positions are categorized within major financial indices. His core complaint: companies that actively use finance and capital markets to build Bitcoin treasuries aren’t just sitting on a pile of coins. They’re operating companies.

From exclusion threat to consultation

To understand why this matters, rewind to late 2025. MSCI floated a proposal that would have effectively booted companies from its indices if more than 50% of their balance sheet consisted of digital assets.

The pushback from the industry was swift and loud. Firms that had deliberately structured their businesses around Bitcoin treasury strategies saw the proposal as a misunderstanding of what they actually do. Holding Bitcoin as a strategic reserve, raising capital through instruments like perpetual preferred equity to acquire more, and managing treasury operations around digital assets, all of that, they argued, constitutes real business activity.

In January 2026, MSCI chose not to implement the exclusion plan. Instead, it opted for a broader industry consultation to develop a more nuanced approach to classifying non-operating companies. The revised framework that emerged from that process is what Cole is now responding to.

The operating company problem

The crux of Cole’s argument is a classification question that sounds academic but has enormous financial consequences. When MSCI decides whether a company is an “operating” business or an “investment” entity, it determines whether that company gets included in the indices that trillions of dollars in passive investment track.

Getting kicked out of a major index isn’t just a reputational hit. It means index funds, ETFs, and institutional portfolios that mirror MSCI benchmarks would be forced to sell shares.

Cole has led Strive since 2023, building it into a structured finance and Bitcoin treasury company. The firm maintains a notable Bitcoin treasury and has utilized various financial instruments, including perpetual preferred equity, to fund its digital asset strategy. In Cole’s view, that kind of active capital markets engagement is textbook operating company behavior.

The distinction he’s drawing is between a company that passively holds Bitcoin like a trust and one that actively deploys capital market strategies to acquire, manage, and grow a Bitcoin position. The latter, Cole contends, looks a lot more like a traditional corporate treasury operation than a closed-end investment fund.

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