Strategy (MSTR) Stays in the Nasdaq 100: Tech Stock or Listed Bitcoin Vault?

Strategy (MSTR), led by Michael Saylor, has held on to its spot in the Nasdaq 100 after the latest annual rebalancing. The reshuffle removed six large companies and added three new names, effective from 22 December, yet Strategy was not among those removed.

On paper, this sounds like a standard index housekeeping update. In reality, it raises a deeper question about how traditional equity indices should treat companies that have effectively transformed themselves into vehicles holding a single volatile asset – in this case, Bitcoin.

Originally a business-intelligence and software provider, Strategy has, since 2020, pivoted to a balance-sheet strategy built around accumulating Bitcoin. As a result, the company’s share price now moves much more like a high-beta Bitcoin instrument than a typical tech stock. That has sparked debate about whether Strategy still belongs in a flagship index meant to represent the largest and most influential non-financial companies on Nasdaq, or whether it now resembles something closer to a publicly listed Bitcoin fund.

The News in Context: What Actually Happened?

The Nasdaq 100 is a capitalization-weighted index made up of 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq exchange. It is widely used as a benchmark for growth and technology exposure, and underpins a large ecosystem of ETFs and derivatives.

Each year, the index is rebalanced and reconstituted. Companies that no longer meet the criteria—because of size, liquidity, sector classification, or corporate actions—can be removed, while new names are added to reflect market evolution. In the latest review, six companies were dropped and three were added, but Strategy remained in the index.

From a purely mechanical standpoint, this means Strategy still satisfies the rules that govern membership: sufficient market capitalization, adequate trading volume, and compliance with listing and sector requirements. But from an economic standpoint, Strategy’s profile today looks very different from a typical member of the index.

From Software Vendor to Bitcoin Balance Sheet Strategy

For most of its corporate history, Strategy operated as a software and analytics company. Its revenues came from on-premise software, enterprise licenses, and related services. Investors valued it using familiar metrics: revenue growth, operating margins, customer retention and competitive position in business intelligence.

That framework began to shift in 2020, when Michael Saylor announced a new treasury strategy: instead of holding large quantities of cash and short-term securities, the company would allocate a substantial portion of its balance sheet to Bitcoin. The rationale was straightforward: in a world of low or negative real interest rates, cash was steadily losing purchasing power, whereas Bitcoin, with its fixed supply and adoption narrative, was presented as a long-term store of value.

Over time, the company doubled down. It did not just use excess cash to purchase Bitcoin; it issued convertible debt, raised equity, and recycled capital with the explicit goal of acquiring more BTC. The software business continued to operate, but the primary driver of the company’s market value shifted decisively toward the size and perceived value of its Bitcoin holdings.

Today, for many market participants, the question “What is MSTR worth?” is almost synonymous with “What is its Bitcoin worth, and how much leverage or optionality sits on top of that?”. The share price reacts much more strongly to movements in BTC than to quarterly software revenue numbers. In effect, the company functions as a hybrid between an operating business and a listed Bitcoin warehouse.

Why Remaining in the Nasdaq 100 Matters

Index membership is not just a badge of prestige. It has tangible implications for capital flows and investor behaviour:

• Automatic demand from index funds: ETFs and mutual funds that track the Nasdaq 100 must hold Strategy shares as long as it remains in the index. That creates a persistent base of demand, regardless of whether every end investor fully understands MSTR’s profile.

• Derivative markets: Options and futures tied to the index incorporate Strategy’s volatility into their pricing. Even a modest weight can have an outsized impact if the stock itself is extremely volatile.

• Signalling effect: Being in the Nasdaq 100 helps frame Strategy, in the eyes of many investors, as a “major tech company,” even if its underlying economics are increasingly dominated by an alternative asset.

For Bitcoin, this means that a large and influential index, widely used in retirement accounts and institutional portfolios, now embeds exposure to BTC indirectly through MSTR. For equity investors, it means part of what they think of as a diversified tech basket now behaves partially like a Bitcoin-sensitive asset.

Is Strategy Still a Tech Company – Or a Bitcoin Vehicle in Disguise?

This is the core of the controversy. Legally and operationally, Strategy continues to describe itself as an enterprise software and analytics company. It employs engineers, sells software, and produces service revenue. Its public filings still highlight its technology offering.

Economically, however, critics argue that Strategy increasingly resembles a listed vehicle for holding and leveraging Bitcoin. The capital-allocation strategy is focused on acquiring more BTC. Debt issuance and equity offerings are often framed explicitly around expanding the Bitcoin position. The software business, while real, appears secondary when investors look at what actually drives market value.

This leads to several key concerns:

• Risk profile misalignment: Investors buying a tech index might not realize that a component stock is effectively a high-beta Bitcoin proxy, potentially increasing the index’s sensitivity to crypto cycles.

• Classification ambiguity: Traditional sector labels like “Software” or “Information Technology” do not capture the dominant role of balance-sheet Bitcoin exposure in Strategy’s valuation.

• Precedent setting: If more companies adopt similar treasury strategies, indices could see increasing numbers of constituents whose value is driven by a small set of digital assets rather than operating performance.

Some index providers, such as MSCI, are reportedly considering whether to adjust their methodologies to address this type of company. The debate is not about whether a firm is “good” or “bad,” but about whether its economic profile matches the goal of the index in which it appears.

Why Index Providers Are Struggling With Bitcoin-Heavy Companies

Index construction always involves trade-offs between simplicity, transparency and economic precision. It is relatively easy to say “top 100 non-financial stocks by market cap,” but that simple rule can break down when the structure of certain companies becomes unusual.

In the past, edge cases might have involved conglomerates or firms with large investment portfolios. Strategy introduces a new kind of complexity: the primary driver of its market value is a single, highly volatile digital asset. Designing rules to account for that is not straightforward:

• If an index excludes all companies with large financial holdings, it might inadvertently remove legitimate operating businesses that simply hold significant cash or securities.
• If it treats Bitcoin holdings as a special case but ignores other non-core assets, the methodology could become inconsistent and hard to defend.
• If it does nothing, investors who expect “pure” tech exposure may end up with more indirect crypto sensitivity than they realize.

This is why some providers are exploring more nuanced filters, such as evaluating what percentage of a company’s valuation is tied to operating cash flows versus financial assets, or creating separate indexes for firms whose business models are heavily tied to digital assets.

Passive Investors and Hidden Bitcoin Exposure

One of the most important consequences of Strategy’s continued presence in the Nasdaq 100 is what it implies for passive investors.

An investor who buys a Nasdaq 100 ETF for a retirement account typically expects broad exposure to large, growth-oriented companies in sectors like software, semiconductors, e-commerce and communications. That investor may have no particular interest in taking a directional view on Bitcoin.

Yet as long as MSTR remains in the index, part of that investor’s capital is effectively tied to the performance of Bitcoin through Strategy’s treasury strategy. The weight of MSTR is not huge compared to mega-cap names, but its volatility can be high. In strong Bitcoin rallies, this may add marginal outperformance; in severe drawdowns, it may amplify the downside contribution from a relatively small index position.

For most diversified long-term investors, this effect will be modest in absolute terms. But the principle matters: it shows how digital assets can creep into portfolios not only through explicit choices (like buying a Bitcoin ETF) but also through the evolving business models of traditional listed companies.

What This Means for Bitcoin’s Mainstream Acceptance

From the perspective of the Bitcoin ecosystem, Strategy’s resilience in the Nasdaq 100 can be interpreted as another sign of integration into mainstream markets.

Alongside spot ETFs, futures, and structured products, a listed company whose primary asset is Bitcoin provides yet another route for capital to gain exposure. Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and retail investors who are comfortable buying equities but hesitant to touch digital assets directly may find it easier—knowingly or unknowingly—to access Bitcoin risk through a familiar ticker like MSTR.

At the same time, this integration forces the traditional financial system to engage more seriously with the risk characteristics of Bitcoin. Index committees, risk managers and regulators cannot ignore the asset if it is embedded inside companies that sit at the heart of widely-tracked benchmarks.

Lessons for Investors: How to Think About Strategy (MSTR)

For anyone evaluating Strategy today, the key is to avoid the trap of thinking about it as a standard enterprise-software stock. A more nuanced framework might look like this:

• Decompose the value: Separate in your mind the operating business (software and services) and the balance-sheet Bitcoin holdings. Ask yourself: if the software business stood alone, how would you value it? And what multiple are you implicitly paying on the BTC position?

• Understand the leverage: When a company uses debt and equity issuance to expand its Bitcoin holdings, shareholders are effectively taking leveraged exposure to BTC. This can amplify gains in rising markets and losses in falling markets.

• Compare with alternatives: If the goal is simply Bitcoin exposure, how does MSTR stack up against spot ETFs or direct ownership in terms of tracking, fees, governance and transparency?

• Size accordingly: Treat MSTR as part of a broader “alternative asset” or “digital asset” bucket rather than as a neutral tech name. Position sizes should reflect its volatility and concentration risk.

None of this means Strategy is “good” or “bad.” It simply underscores that buying the stock is not the same thing as buying a diversified tech business with a small cash reserve. It is a specific, high-conviction bet on a particular treasury strategy built around Bitcoin.

The Bigger Picture: Indices in an On-Chain World

Strategy’s story is likely a preview of broader shifts as more institutions and corporates experiment with digital assets:

• More hybrid companies: Other firms may adopt balance-sheet strategies that include Bitcoin or tokenized assets, blurring the line between operating company and holding vehicle.
• Richer index taxonomies: Index providers may need to develop new categories or overlays that capture digital-asset exposure, rather than relying solely on traditional sector classifications.
• Growing need for transparency: Investors will increasingly ask not just “what sector is this company in?” but also “what role do digital assets play in its value?”

In that sense, Strategy remaining in the Nasdaq 100 is not just a footnote about one stock surviving a rebalance. It is a signal of a financial system slowly adapting to the reality that digital assets are no longer an isolated niche—they are starting to sit on corporate balance sheets, flow through index methodologies, and show up in portfolios that were never explicitly labelled as “crypto-exposed.”

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice. Digital assets and equities linked to digital assets can be highly volatile and may not be suitable for all investors. Always do your own research and consider consulting a licensed professional before making financial decisions.