Why MSCI Is Cautious About Including Digital Asset Treasuries in Indexes
MSCI has taken a cautious approach to including digital asset treasuries (DATs) in its indexes, citing significant challenges in establishing reliable valuation and risk metrics for these emerging crypto assets. This stance highlights ongoing difficulties in integrating digital assets into traditional financial benchmarks amid volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and a lack of standardized methodologies.
What happened
MSCI’s official communications and index methodology documents confirm that the firm requires assets included in its indexes to meet standards of transparency, liquidity, and investability. Digital asset treasuries, as evidenced by recent ETF issuers’ filings such as those from Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, frequently fail to meet these criteria due to their high volatility and the absence of standardized valuation methods. This has led MSCI to express caution about including DATs in its benchmarks.
Independent research supports MSCI’s position. The S&P Dow Jones Indices’ 2025 Crypto Asset Index Report underscores the difficulty of defining risk metrics for crypto assets, given their unique market behaviors and the ongoing regulatory ambiguity surrounding them. Similarly, the CFA Institute’s 2025 Crypto Asset Risk Metrics Report highlights that the lack of long-term historical data and consistent accounting standards impairs the ability to reliably measure the risk-return profiles of digital assets.
Industry commentary, including a CoinDesk opinion piece dated December 12, 2025, interprets MSCI’s cautious approach as reflecting broader concerns within the financial industry. Without established valuation frameworks and risk assessment tools, including DATs in mainstream indexes could introduce excessive volatility and undermine the credibility of these benchmarks. However, some analysts also note that this caution may delay innovation and the wider institutional adoption of digital assets.
Why this matters
MSCI’s stance is significant because it illustrates the structural challenges of integrating digital assets into established financial market infrastructures. Index providers like MSCI play a critical role in shaping investment flows, influencing asset allocation decisions by institutional investors worldwide. Their standards for inclusion effectively set a bar for what qualifies as a credible, investable asset.
The reluctance to include DATs underscores the gap between traditional financial metrics—such as liquidity, transparency, and investability—and the realities of digital asset markets, which often operate under different dynamics. This gap affects not only index composition but also broader market stability and investor protection.
Furthermore, the lack of standardized valuation and risk frameworks for digital assets complicates regulatory oversight and risk management. MSCI’s cautious position thus highlights systemic risks that could arise if crypto assets were incorporated prematurely into widely followed benchmarks without sufficient market maturity or regulatory clarity.
What remains unclear
While the broad contours of MSCI’s caution are documented, several important details remain undisclosed or unclear. The specific internal thresholds or criteria MSCI would require for including digital asset treasuries in its indexes are not publicly available. There is also limited information on how MSCI plans to adapt its index methodology as crypto markets evolve.
Additionally, the timeline for when digital asset markets might mature to meet MSCI’s standards is unknown. The evolving regulatory landscape, which significantly affects asset classification and risk assessment, adds further uncertainty. There are no direct statements from MSCI executives elaborating on future integration plans or on how regulatory developments might influence those decisions.
Finally, current ETF filings and disclosures do not provide consistent or comprehensive valuation methodologies for digital assets, limiting transparency on how these assets are currently priced and risk-assessed within investment products.
What to watch next
- Updates from MSCI regarding any revisions to their index methodology to accommodate digital asset treasuries as market standards evolve.
- Regulatory developments globally that clarify classification, reporting, and risk management standards for digital assets.
- Emergence of standardized valuation and risk metrics for digital assets, potentially led by industry groups or standard-setting bodies.
- New ETF filings or disclosures that demonstrate improved transparency and consistency in digital asset valuation methodologies.
- Research reports from major index providers and financial institutions assessing the maturation of digital asset markets and their readiness for benchmark inclusion.
MSCI’s cautious approach to digital asset treasuries reflects a broader industry challenge: integrating rapidly evolving crypto assets into traditional financial benchmarks requires robust, standardized valuation and risk frameworks that currently do not exist. While this stance protects index integrity and investor interests, it leaves open significant questions about the future timeline and conditions under which digital assets might be fully incorporated into mainstream indexes.
Source: https://www.coindesk.com/opinion/2025/12/12/msci-isn-t-wrong-to-be-cautious-on-dats. This article is based on verified research material available at the time of writing. Where information is limited or unavailable, this is stated explicitly.