On January 7, Bitcoin lost just over 2% in 24 hours, falling back to $91,000–92,000 even as an announcement deemed « very bullish » came from MSCI: Bitcoin treasury companies (Digital Asset Treasury Companies, or DATCOs) will remain in the major indices. However, the market neither exploded upward nor validated a new leg of the bull run. On the contrary, selling pressure intensified around $95,000 and BTC resumed its correction.
For savvy crypto investors, the real question is: what, behind the headlines, cooled the market?
The Initial Threat: Excluding « Bitcoin Treasuries » from Indices
In October 2025, MSCI launched an explosive consultation: exclude from the MSCI Global Investable Market indices companies whose assets are more than 50% in Bitcoin or other crypto, considering they resemble funds rather than operational companies. Among the 39 potentially targeted stocks: MicroStrategy (renamed « Strategy Inc. » in several reports), Metaplanet, and other listed companies that made Bitcoin their main treasury asset.
The announcement caused an immediate shock: Bitcoin recorded an intraday plunge of about $12,000 on the day the proposal was published, marking the start of a broader corrective phase in late 2025. Analysts like JPMorgan estimated that the exclusion could trigger $10 to $15 billion in forced sales over a year, including nearly $2.8 billion on MicroStrategy/Strategy alone if other index providers imitated MSCI.
The Final Decision: Status Quo… But with New « Handcuffs »
On January 6–7, 2026, MSCI partially backed down. The company announced it would not ultimately implement the exclusion of DATCOs in the February 2026 review: companies like Strategy/MicroStrategy will therefore remain in the major MSCI indices, removing the scenario of massive forced sales of their shares.
However, MSCI confirmed in its technical communications a key change: no increase in the Number of Shares (NOS) will be taken into account for these companies, no increase in inclusion factors (FIF/DIF), and no new inclusion or size migration in the indices for the concerned stocks.
In other words: DATCOs already in the indices are « grandfathered » but frozen. They keep their place but lose the ability to mechanically increase their weight in indices via new share issuances.
The End of a Passive Capital Pump for MicroStrategy
Under the old MSCI regime, the mechanism was extremely favorable to « Bitcoin treasury » companies. For example, when a company like Strategy issued 10 million new shares, MSCI adjusted the index to reflect this additional float. Index funds tracking MSCI, which typically held 10% of the capital, were thus forced to buy 10% of the new shares, or 1 million shares. At a price of $300, this generated $300 million in almost automatic passive purchases that Strategy could use to buy Bitcoin.
This model allowed MicroStrategy/Strategy to raise more than $11 to $15 billion through « at-the-market » issuances and programs between 2020 and 2025 to accumulate over 670,000 BTC. As long as the stock traded at a premium to its treasury value (market NAV > 1), this mechanism created a virtuous circle: share issuance → passive purchases → more BTC → increased leverage on the bull market.
With MSCI’s decision to no longer adjust the number of shares for these companies, this virtuous circle is broken on the passive side. Strategy must now find « discretionary » buyers (hedge funds, family offices, retail…) to absorb its capital increases. In practice, this often means issuances at lower prices, thus fewer dollars available to buy BTC at each raise.
Why This Decision Is Less Bullish Than It Appears
For the Bitcoin market, the reading is therefore mixed. On the positive side: no massive forced sales of MSTR or other DATCO shares, thus no immediate risk of BTC liquidation by these companies to manage a liquidity crisis linked to index exclusion.
On the negative side: Strategy and others’ marginal capacity to raise capital in « quasi-automatic » mode is reduced, which removes a structural buying flow on Bitcoin that had played a non-negligible role in the 2023–2025 bull market.
It’s this second, more technical but deeper reading that the market began to integrate. Hence a rational reflex: we remove a major extreme downside risk, but we also reduce one of the engines of the rise through corporate leverage.
A « Big Boy Sell Wall » Blocks the Breakout Above $95,000
At the time of the MSCI announcement, Bitcoin had just rebounded to $93,000–94,000, after a gloomy end to 2025. But several on-chain and order book analyses showed a massive sell wall around $95,000: a « sell wall » of about $24M at $95,000 was visible on Coinbase and Binance, becoming a key friction point for the price.
Technically, BTC was testing the $94–95k zone, corresponding both to a 61.8% Fibonacci retracement and the upper part of a consolidation range. As soon as the price approached this zone, sellers activated, momentum faded, and BTC flowed back to $91–92k.
From a purely technical standpoint, the market was already in a profit-taking and fragility zone when the MSCI news dropped: major resistance at $95k, nearby but still testable supports at $90–89k, and a non-negligible correction scenario towards the high $70k if the structure breaks.
Derivatives and Macro Signals Far From Euphoric
In derivatives and macro markets, the message is also more nuanced than simple « bullish MSCI. » Futures and options data show that open interest remains concentrated on short-term maturities, with a preference for bearish hedging rather than aggressive long-term bets.
Bitcoin’s realized volatility was surpassed by silver’s at the end of 2025, a rare phenomenon suggesting investors’ preference for physical metals as a hedge in the geopolitical and inflationary context. Bitcoin underperformed gold and silver, remaining stuck between $86,000 and $90,000 while metals continued their rally.
Paradox: ETF Flows Resume Upward, But Price Stalls
Another element fuels investor confusion: while the price corrects, flows into Bitcoin ETFs clearly resume upward. Spot BTC ETFs in the United States recorded approximately $1.1 to $1.2 billion in net inflows over the first two trading days of 2026.
BlackRock (IBIT) and Fidelity (FBTC) captured most of the flows, with IBIT now managing over $67–71 billion in assets, and total Bitcoin ETF AUM exceeding $100–130 billion depending on sources.
This disconnect is explained by several factors: strong outflows in November–December 2025 cleaned up the market, and new inflows in early 2026 partially offset these outflows without necessarily creating a new net momentum in the short term. Part of the flows also corresponds to rotations between products (GBTC outflows, IBIT/FBTC inflows) rather than entirely new money.
MicroStrategy: Still Bull BTC, But with New Constraints
MicroStrategy/Strategy’s equation is at the heart of the market’s reaction. The company now holds nearly 673,000–674,000 BTC, worth over $58–60 billion at recent prices. Despite this colossal position, MSTR/Strategy stock fell approximately 50–66% from its 2025 highs, wiping out nearly $90 billion in market cap.
The company remains liquid (about $2.2 billion in cash and reserves) and faces no covenant forcing it to sell its BTC in the short term. But two important developments change market perception: the « market Net Asset Value » (mNAV) metric, which compares Strategy’s market cap to its bitcoin value, returned close to 1 (about 1.02), whereas it stood well above during euphoric phases.
When mNAV > 1, Strategy can issue shares at a premium to its bitcoins and buy more BTC with new shareholders’ money. When mNAV ≈ 1 or < 1, this model is much less attractive: issuances dilute more and can even become value-destructive.
Synthesis: Why Bitcoin Fell After the Announcement
Combining these elements, Bitcoin’s decline after the MSCI announcement is coherently explained. The avoided exclusion represents short-term relief, but the freeze on float increases in indices constitutes a structural brake on Strategy and other DATCOs’ capital-raising machine.
The technical context was unfavorable for an immediate breakout: massive sell wall at $95,000, obvious profit-taking zone after a year-beginning rebound. Sentiment remains fragile despite ETFs, with compressed volatility and underperformance against metals.
MicroStrategy/Strategy faces stock market pressure, with its stock halved or more from its 2025 highs and mNAV close to 1. MSCI removes the worst scenario (exclusion) but doesn’t restore the ideal context that allowed MSTR to be an infinite « BTC buying machine. »
In this framework, the market’s reaction – a 2–3% BTC drop to $91,000 despite a « bullish » announcement – appears less paradoxical: the market prices less the catchy headline than the technical detail, while respecting profit-taking logic on resistance.
Scenarios to Monitor for 2026
For the rest of the cycle, several points deserve particular attention. Price behavior around $90,000 and $88-89,000 will be crucial: maintaining above these levels would argue for healthy consolidation before another attempt at $95,000 then $100,000. Conversely, a clear break would open the door to testing the $80,000 zone.
Strategy’s premium/discount evolution (mNAV) remains crucial: if MSTR recovers a significant premium on its BTC, its issuance model could restart and recreate a form of structural corporate demand.
ETF flow trajectory will also be decisive: sustainably higher flows above $200–300M per day on major ETFs could largely compensate for the decline in MicroStrategy-type corporate demand and reactivate powerful bullish momentum.
Finally, MSCI simply postponed the problem: the indexer announced it wants to launch a broader review of non-operational company treatment, which could eventually fundamentally redefine the place of « Bitcoin treasuries » in global indices.
In summary, Bitcoin’s decline after the MSCI announcement isn’t a contradiction but reflects a market now thinking in net flows, demand quality, and structural constraints rather than bullish slogans. It’s precisely on this terrain – that of flow microstructure – that the next major leg of the Bitcoin cycle will be played out.
