Bitwise CIO: Strategy will not sell its bitcoin holdings

On December 4th, according to The Block, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan refuted claims that Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) could be forced to sell its bitcoin holdings. He called the premise "completely false" and pointed out that neither index correction nor market pressure compelled the company to sell bitcoin.
In a note, Hougan responded to a flurry of inquiries he has received recently, focusing on two questions: whether Strategy will be removed from the MSCI index, and whether such an adjustment will force the company to unwind its multi-billion dollar bitcoin holdings. Hougan acknowledged that MSCI is indeed considering excluding digital asset vault companies from its investable index, and plans to make a decision on January 15. JPMorgan recently estimated that if Strategy is removed, it could trigger up to about $2.80 billion in passive funds to dump its shares. Hougan also judged that the probability of Strategy being removed is about 75%.
However, Hougan pointed out that historical experience shows that the inclusion and removal of indices has a much smaller impact on prices than investors generally fear. He noted that when Strategy was included in the Nasdaq 100 index last year, passive funds were forced to buy about $2.10 billion of stocks, but "the stock price was barely moving." He added that the decline in Strategy's stock price since October 10 is likely the market has pre-priced the possibility of removal, and he does not expect "significant two-way large fluctuations" in the future.