MSCI's Bitcoin snub is like penalizing Chevron for oil: Strategy CEO

Source: CryptoNewsNet Original Title: MSCI’s Bitcoin snub is like penalizing Chevron for oil: Strategy CEO Original Link: Stock market index MSCI’s proposed exclusion of companies holding more than 50% of their crypto on their balance sheets would be akin to pushing out multinational energy companies like Chevron for holding oil, argues Strategy CEO Phong Le.

The MSCI Index announced in October that it was consulting with the investment community about whether to exclude Bitcoin and other digital asset treasury companies (DATs) that have the majority of their balance sheet in crypto.

During an interview with the Schwab Network on Wednesday, a streaming and market-analysis channel, Le said that he has “a lot of respect for the indexes,” but said the MSCI’s stance is “misinformed and misguided.”

He also said that oil giant Chevron has more than half of its assets in oil, timberland company Weyerhaeuser has a significant portion of its assets in wood, and Simon Property Group owns a substantial part of its assets in real estate, and none of them are facing exclusion.

“It seems very early to pick winners and choosers and stifle innovation in a category like this,” Le said.

“This would be like in the 1980s, saying the telecom company shouldn’t have built out cell towers and spectrum, or three years ago, saying AI companies shouldn’t be investing in labs and high-performance compute.”

MSCI’s stance is a mischaracterization: Strategy CEO

Le said that other parts of the MSCI proposal, such as characterizing Strategy and other digital asset companies as funds rather than operating companies, are also a mistake.

Some of the feedback to the proposal so far has been that DATs can “exhibit characteristics similar to investment funds, which are currently not eligible for index inclusion,” according to the MSCI.

“I’ve been CFO since 2015, Michael Saylor founded the company in 1989, we’ve been public since 1998, I work here day to day, and we are 100% an operating company legally from a corporate structure,” Le said.

Strategy letter says MSCI proposal isn’t neutral

Le’s comments come on the same day as Strategy released its letter to MSCI, pushing back on the proposal on the grounds that it would bias the MSCI against crypto as an asset class, rather than the index company acting as a neutral arbiter.

The MSCI consultation is open until Dec. 31, with the conclusion to be made public on Jan. 15 next year, and any resulting changes coming into force during February.

Charlie Sherry, the head of finance at Australian crypto exchange BTC Markets, told Cointelegraph last month that the MSCI only puts changes like this into consultation when they’re already leaning toward implementation.