JPMorgan has significantly angered the Bitcoin community. The American investment bank circulated a note stating that index provider MSCI will likely stop including companies with a large portion of their balance sheet in crypto starting in 2026. The news particularly hit so-called crypto treasury companies—firms that intentionally hold bitcoin as a strategic reserve. The result: a wave of angry reactions calling for a boycott of JPMorgan.
Calls for Boycott of JPMorgan #
The proposed MSCI rule from the note is as follows: if 50 percent or more of a company’s balance sheet consists of crypto, the company cannot be included in the index. For funds that are required to track certain indexes, this would mean they would have to automatically sell the stock.
Many Bitcoiners see the potential exclusion as an attempt to push companies that embrace bitcoin out of market indexes. This would directly impact several companies, including Strategy, the firm that was added to the Nasdaq 100 in late 2024 due to its rapid growth and large bitcoin position.
After this became public knowledge, a storm of reactions quickly erupted, primarily on X. Real estate investor Grant Cardone, for example, wrote that he had pulled €17 million from Chase, followed by Max Keiser who called for dropping JPMorgan and buying bitcoin and Strategy stock instead. Strategy founder Michael Saylor responded to the situation for the first time on Friday. According to him, the narrative is completely wrong.
“Strategy is not a fund, not a trust, and not a holding,” Saylor said. “We create, structure, issue, and operate.”
JPMorgan Closes Strike CEO’s Accounts #
As if that wasn’t enough fuel on the fire, Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced that JPMorgan Chase had closed his bank accounts without warning. Mallers wrote that the bank gave him no explanation, other than that “concerning activities” were found on his account. The notification that he would likely not be allowed to open a new account in the future caused outrage among crypto entrepreneurs.
Mallers’ story led to speculation about whether Operation Chokepoint 2.0—the alleged pressure from regulators to push banks away from crypto companies—is still alive. Although the Trump administration previously denied claims about this practice and signed an executive order to punish debanking, many see the incident with Mallers as a sign that tensions between banks and the crypto sector are far from over.