On September 5, 2025, as the closing bell rang on Wall Street, the lights in the office of Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy (now renamed Strategy), remained on all night. This publicly traded company, holding 506,137 bitcoins, had just received an official response from S&P Dow Jones Indices regarding its application for inclusion in the S&P 500 Index, which was delayed due to "asset attribute disputes." This means that this crypto asset, valued at $110,000 per unit on that day, totaling a market value of $55.7 billion, along with nearly $70 billion in other business operations, has temporarily been kept outside the core asset pool of Wall Street.

The capital dilemma of a gamble

Strategy's challenge began in the second quarter of 2025. At that time, the company raised $711 million through a preferred stock issuance, increasing its holdings of 6,911 Bitcoins at an average price of $84,529, pushing the accumulated investment cost to $33.7 billion, with an average holding cost of $66,608. As of early September, this investment had achieved approximately $22 billion in unrealized gains, making its book profits fully meet the continuous quarterly profit standards required by the S&P 500 index, and the total market value of HK$1.847 billion far exceeded the threshold of $22.7 billion.


However, Wall Street's doubts are not unfounded. S&P specifically pointed out in its response letter that, although the FASB will implement fair value accounting rules for crypto assets in fiscal year 2025, the 24-hour volatility of Bitcoin at the $110,000 price point, which is 1.41%, still shows a significant gap compared to the average volatility of 0.8% for S&P 500 components. More critically, the recent strong resistance level at $112,000 has been breached multiple times, indicating market concerns about the liquidity of crypto assets of such scale.

This concern contrasts sharply with the case of Galaxy Digital. The company completed a quiet delivery of 80,000 Bitcoins (then valued at $9 billion) in July, achieving seamless settlement through OTC channels and PIPE structure design. If Strategy were to be included in the S&P 500, tracking funds would need to passively purchase $16 billion worth of stocks, which is equivalent to 32% of the current daily trading volume of Bitcoin, raising market fears of potential price volatility.

Bilateral game in the regulatory maze

The (Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act) introduced by the Trump administration at the beginning of the year brought a glimmer of hope to the crypto industry, as this act included 200,000 Bitcoins seized by the judiciary into national reserves, forming a "national-level lock-up" effect. Subsequently, the SEC approved the physical purchase and redemption mechanism for crypto ETFs in July, seen as an important signal of regulatory easing. However, these developments have not completely alleviated the concerns of traditional finance.


JPMorgan has announced plans to launch Bitcoin-backed loan services in 2026, and CEO Jamie Dimon has shifted from the stance of "Bitcoin is a scam" to "defending the right to purchase," but internal assessments show that it currently only accepts compliant products like Grayscale Trust as collateral, while directly accepting Bitcoin held by publicly listed companies still needs to overcome anti-money laundering scrutiny. This contradiction reflects Wall Street's complex mindset: wanting to share in the growth dividends of the crypto market while being constrained by the inertia of existing financial infrastructure.

Strategy's predicament also exposes the disconnect between accounting rules and market practices. According to the company's financial report, its Bitcoin assets measured at fair value have generated $14 billion in unrealized gains, but the S&P Index Committee is more focused on the profitability of traditional businesses. The clash of this valuation system is essentially the institutional friction that digital assets inevitably encounter when trying to integrate into traditional financial evaluation frameworks.

Class differentiation under the wave of institutionalization

Behind this rejection lies a deep differentiation in the institutionalization process of the crypto industry. "Rule adaptors" like Galaxy Digital have invested $25 million over four years in compliance building to clear regulatory pathways, becoming the "political passport" for crypto giants like CZ to enter Wall Street. On the other hand, "faith practitioners" like Strategy have proven the appreciation potential of crypto assets but have encountered regulatory barriers at the last mile.


Market reactions are swift and subtle. After the news of the application rejection on September 5, Bitcoin's price briefly dipped from $111,000 to the $109,500 support level, with the day's leveraged liquidation amount increasing by $32 million. This volatility contrasts sharply with the stability observed when Galaxy completed a transaction of 80,000 Bitcoins in July, highlighting the disparity among different players in terms of Wall Street connections and compliance capabilities.

The more profound impact lies in the competition for asset pricing power. The U.S. Treasury Secretary believes that stablecoins under the (GENIUS Act) framework will bring $1.8 trillion in demand for U.S. Treasury bonds, while Bitcoin's position as "digital gold" has yet to receive equal recognition. When Goldman Sachs pushes forward its tokenized treasury project, Strategy's $70 billion assets are stuck outside the traditional index threshold, suggesting that the institutionalization of crypto assets still faces structural ceilings.

The unfinished path of challenges

For Michael Saylor, this gamble is far from over. The company has met all the hard indicators for inclusion in the S&P 500, but has stumbled on the flexible clause of "the particularity of crypto assets." As SEC Chair Atkins advances the "value-neutral regulatory principle" and the improvement of physical ETF mechanisms, the market generally expects a potential policy loosening in 2026.


The attitude of Wall Street is also undergoing a gradual change. Morgan Stanley has launched the RWA token "HL", and Deutsche Bank plans to issue a euro stablecoin, showing that traditional finance is shifting from resistance to actively building a crypto ecosystem. S&P Dow Jones Indices also left room in their response, stating they would "continuously evaluate market practices for the accounting treatment of crypto assets", laying the groundwork for future reconsideration.

This $70 billion battle is essentially a microcosm of the collision between old and new financial systems. As Bitcoin navigates through bull and bear cycles, its true test lies not in breaking the price prediction of $200,000, but in finding a way to coexist within the maze of Wall Street's rules. The temporary setback for Strategy may just be a checkpoint in the long process of integrating crypto assets into the global financial infrastructure.#比特币预测