The tension erupted following news that Strategy and other crypto treasury companies would likely be excluded from major market indexes.
The backlash against financial services company JP Morgan from the Bitcoin (BTC) community and supporters of BTC treasury company Strategy continued to swell on Sunday as calls to “boycott” JP Morgan grew.
The anger from the Bitcoin community followed news that the MSCI, formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International, an index company that sets criteria for index inclusion, is likely to exclude crypto treasury companies from its indexes in January 2026.
JP Morgan shared the MSCI news in a research note. “I just pulled $20 million from Chase and suing them for credit card malfeasance,” real estate investor and Bitcoin advocate Grant Cardone said in response to a call to boycott the financial services giant.
“Crash JP Morgan and buy Strategy and BTC,” Bitcoin advocate Max Keiser said, as the online boycott movement gained steam.
The exclusion of crypto treasury companies from stock indexes could trigger an automatic sell-off of their shares from funds and asset managers that are mandated to buy specific types of financial instruments, and could negatively impact crypto markets.
Related: Saylor shrugs off suggestion Wall Street ‘hurt’ Bitcoin amid latest crash
Strategy founder Michael Saylor breaks his silence and responds to MSCI
Strategy entered the Nasdaq 100, a stock market index of the 100 largest companies by market capitalization on the tech-focused stock exchange, in December 2024
This allowed Strategy to reap the benefits of passive capital flows from funds and investors holding the Nasdaq 100.
Strategy founder Michael Saylor responded to the proposed MSCI policy change on Friday, saying, “Strategy is not a fund, not a trust, and not a holding company.”
“Funds and trusts passively hold assets. Holding companies sit on investments. We create, structure, issue, and operate,” Saylor said, adding that Strategy is a “Bitcoin-backed structured finance company.”
The proposed MSCI listing criteria change would force any treasury company with 50% or more of its balance sheet in crypto to lose its index status.
These companies would then face one of two choices: reduce crypto holdings to be below the threshold to qualify for index inclusion, or lose the passive capital flows from the market indexes.
A sudden sell-off from crypto treasury companies impacted by the proposed MSCI change could force digital asset prices down, according to analysts.
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