According to Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, McDonald's has formally declined to discuss a proposal to acquire bitcoin at its May shareholder meeting. The controversy began with a proposal by the National Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank and company shareholder, to follow MicroStrategy's lead and include bitcoin on its balance sheet as a store of value. According to the documents, McDonald's legal team submitted a request to the SEC in March to confirm compliance with the "no discussion of the proposal". In a March 28 letter, the SEC made it clear that the proposal involves the company's day-to-day operating decisions and that McDonald's has the right to exclude it from the shareholder meeting agenda under regulatory rules. The incident has reignited discussion of corporate allocations to crypto assets. Since Trump's election victory in 2024 drove bitcoin to a record high, several public companies have faced similar shareholder proposals, but the degree of corporate adoption has been widely divided. GameStop, a gaming retailer, announced in March that it would raise $1.50 billion to buy bitcoin, while Microsoft shareholders voted down similar proposals in December.