Bitcoin enthusiast Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy has earned a spot on the Nasdaq 100 index stated by Nasdaq themselves. The addition of this business intelligence firm into the index starting from December 23, will be accompanied by the induction of two other firms, Palantir Technologies Inc. and Axon Enterprise, Inc. As a result, three companies namely, Illumina, Inc., Super Micro Computer, Inc., and Moderna, Inc. will be delisted from the index.
MicroStrategy’s placement on the Nasdaq 100 signifies its rank among the index’s top 100 corporations based on market capitalization. The company secured this position after indirectly becoming a Bitcoin hedge fund in 2020. Invesco QQQ Trust, an exchange-traded fund managing around $322 billion in assets, will also incorporate MicroStrategy into their portfolio because of this listing.
The crypto community responded swiftly to this news. Will Clemente, a crypto analyst painted a huge picture claiming that the addition of MicroStrategy to Nasdaq would expose every large pension fund, sovereign wealth fund, and individual retirement account worldwide to Bitcoin. Jeff Park from Bitwise Invest predicted a tremendous opportunity, while Hartmann Capital founder Felix Hartmann hinted that this news could affect active managers who are now against levered Bitcoin.
All these developments follow the recent rejection of a proposal to include Bitcoin in Microsoft’s balance sheets during the annual shareholders’ meeting on December 10. Previously, at a Microsoft board meeting, Michael Saylor presented a compelling case for Bitcoin, stating that by leveraging Bitcoin, Microsoft could potentially add nearly $5 trillion to its market cap, thereby riding the next big technology wave.