The backlash from the Bitcoin (BTC) community and supporters of BTC finance firm Strategy against financial services firm JP Morgan continued to grow on Sunday as calls to “boycott” JP Morgan grew.
Anger within the Bitcoin community followed news that MSCI, formerly Morgan Stanley Capital International, an index company that sets criteria for index inclusion, is prone to exclude crypto treasury firms from its indexes in January 2026.
JP Morgan shared the MSCI news in a research note. “I just withdrew $20 million from Chase and sued them for bank card abuse,” real estate investor and Bitcoin advocate Grant Cardone said in response to a call for a boycott of the financial services giant.
“Destroy JP Morgan and buy strategy and BTC,” Bitcoin advocate Max Keizer said as the net boycott movement gained momentum.
Source: Fred Krueger
The exclusion of crypto treasury firms from stock indices could trigger an automatic sale of their shares by funds and asset managers committed to buying certain sorts of financial instruments and will negatively impact crypto markets.
Strategy founder Michael Saylor breaks his silence and responds to MSCI
In December 2024, Strategy was added to the Nasdaq 100, a stock market index of the 100 largest firms by market capitalization on the technology-focused stock exchange
This allowed Strategy to reap the advantages of passive capital flows from funds and investors holding the Nasdaq 100.
Strategy founder Michael Saylor responded to MSCI's proposed policy change on Friday, saying: “Strategy shouldn’t be a fund, not a trust and never a holding company.”
“Funds and trusts hold assets passively. Holding firms sit on investments. We form, structure, issue and operate,” Saylor said, adding that Strategy is a “Bitcoin-backed structured finance company.”
The proposed change to MSCI listing criteria would end in any treasury firm with 50% or more of its balance sheet invested in cryptocurrencies losing its index status.
These firms would then face one in every of two options: they might reduce their crypto holdings to the purpose where they fall below the index inclusion threshold, or they might lose passive capital flows from the market indices.
A sudden sell-off by crypto treasury firms affected by the proposed MSCI change could push down digital asset prices, in keeping with analysts.
