JPMorgan Piled Into Strategy and a Bitcoin ETF Before the Slide

JPMorgan finished September holding 848,932 Strategy shares worth $131.3 million, a 36% increase from the 624,387 shares it reported three months earlier. Its iShares Bitcoin Trust position climbed to 11.4 million shares worth $540 million, compared with 10.4 million shares valued at $355.7 million in June. That works out to a 9.6% rise in share count and a 52% jump in reported market value. The bank also logged smaller stakes in Grayscale's Bitcoin Mini Trust and Bitwise's Bitcoin ETF.

Together, the Strategy and IBIT holdings were worth $671 million at September 30 — two separate routes into Bitcoin exposure. The filing also discloses substantial put-option positions against both Strategy and IBIT alongside calls, a more tangled derivatives stance than a straight bullish bet. The share counts underneath still went up.

The timing stings for Michael Saylor. MSCI confirmed Strategy will leave the MSCI USA Index after the November 30 close, and it is also dropping out of the MSCI World and ACWI benchmarks as the index provider applies new eligibility rules for non-operating companies. Passive funds tracking those benchmarks typically have to reshuffle when a constituent disappears. Strategy has warned index exclusions could trigger billions in outflows, and JPMorgan previously put the MSCI removal alone at $2.8 billion in selling pressure — a number that could grow if other index providers copy the approach.

Bitcoin gave the trade an immediate test, dipping below $69,000 for its lowest level since August. Liquidations hit $1.6 billion in 24 hours, with more than $1.3 billion of that coming from wiped-out long positions. So one of Wall Street's biggest banks was expanding its Strategy stake during the very quarter the company was marching toward a major index setback.