Original｜Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Wenser ( @wenser 2010 )
On March 26, Gamestop announced the official establishment of a BTC strategic reserve, and its stock price soared. After the market closed, it rose 5.5% from the closing price, when the stock price was $26.80. As of the time of writing (March 27), its stock price has risen to $28.36, a single-day increase of 11.65%. After Strategy, Metaplanet and other US-listed and Nikkei-listed companies established their own coin-stock dual flywheel with BTC strategic reserves, Gamestop, once a retail meme stock, is about to join the BTC strategic reserve camp. It has to be said that, to some extent, this is already a general trend and a popular thing.
With the announcement, this months-long suspense event has finally come to an end. Odaily Planet Daily will sort out GameStops establishment of a BTC strategic reserve in this article, and use it to explore the subsequent spillover effects of cryptocurrencies and the U.S. stock market.
The hidden clues are far-reaching: Gamestop also has its own crypto hero dream
A look at past crypto failures: wallets, NFT markets, and meme coins
It is worth mentioning that as a well-known retailer in the gaming field, this is not the first time that GameStop has entered the cryptocurrency industry. It previously launched Gamestop Wallet and NFT market at the end of the NFT bull market in 2022. The latter had a transaction volume of over 22 million US dollars about one month after its official launch. However, with the cooling of the NFT market and the high-pressure regulatory environment in the United States at the time, GameStop eventually streamlined and laid off its cryptocurrency-related business team at the end of 2022, and suspended Gamestop Wallet-related businesses in August 2023 and stopped NFT market operations in February 2024.
It can be said that traditional listed companies’ forays into the cryptocurrency industry are not always as smooth as those of Strategy, Metaplanet and other companies. Especially during the Biden administration in the United States, regulators have been extremely strict about cryptocurrency-related businesses. Coupled with the instability of business models and market performance , Gamestop’s initial crypto experience journey was not smooth.
After that, what made GameStop attract the markets attention again was the return of Roaring Kitty, the soul figure who once led retail investors to fight against Wall Street short sellers, in May 2024. At that time, the national Meme coin craze also made the Meme coin of the same name gain massive attention in a short period of time , and GameStops stock also soared, but in the end it was difficult to avoid the mistakes of most Meme coins.
Last October, due to GameStop releasing a picture of a smiling porpoise on the X platform , the related meme token miharu rose briefly to over $0.01, which also triggered a wave of zoo meme coin market. For more information, please see WAP, 🐬, 🧲, the meme coin PVP war has entered the next level? .
Although it has thrived in the cryptocurrency industry and has mastered the meme culture, GameStop, which started out as a physical game retailer, is still facing the impact of the development of industries such as digital downloads and cloud gaming on its main business. GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen was previously fined $1 million by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for violating antitrust laws.
According to the financial report previously released by Gamestop, in 2024, Gamestops full-year net sales reached US$3.823 billion, down about 27.5% from US$5.273 billion in the previous fiscal year; but net profit increased from US$6.7 million in the previous fiscal year to US$131.3 million. As of February 1, 2025, GameStops cash and cash equivalents reserves were approximately US$4.77 billion, a significant increase from US$921.7 million in the previous year. It is understood that this increase is mainly attributed to its cost-cutting and asset divestiture strategies, including the completion of the divestiture of the Italian business and the closure of German store operations.
In other words, Gamestop urgently needs to find new growth points beyond cost reduction and efficiency improvement, which is also an important reason why they have set their sights on BTC strategic reserves.
Today, BTC strategic reserve becomes a life-saving straw: Meet the big guys and solve the deadlock
As early as February 2021, CNBC host Jim Cramer said that GameStop should buy Bitcoin. He said that GME could issue $1 billion in stocks, buy $1 billion in Bitcoin, and then watch the stock rise to $430.
It has to be said that the answer to the original version had already been revealed, but Gamestop hadnt figured it out at the time.
On February 7 this year, Gamestop CEO Ryan Cohen met with MicroStrategy founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor, sparking market speculation that Gamestop would soon get involved in BTC strategic reserves.
Interestingly, Cohen joined the Gamestop board after buying Gamestop stock.
The subsequent trend indeed verified this market speculation, and Gamestops move also brought considerable potential buying for BTC.
Gamestop potential buy: $4.77 billion + $1.3 billion
In addition to the existing $4.77 billion in cash and cash equivalents reserves, GameStop recently announced plans to privately place $1.3 billion in convertible senior notes due in 2030, which will allow initial purchasers to purchase notes with a total principal amount of no more than $200 million. In addition, it emphasized : The company hopes to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of Bitcoin in a manner consistent with GameStops investment policy.
It is worth mentioning that as early as December 2023, GameStops board of directors approved CEO Ryan Cohen to manage GameStops securities portfolio together with two independent board members and other necessary staff, and the decision on the BTC strategic reserve was also the result of unanimous approval by Gamestops board of directors.
Gamestop clearly stated that the new revenue will be used to purchase BTC
Aftermath: Some criticized, some agreed, but did not rule out the possibility of selling BTC
On March 26, after Gamestop officially released the BTC reserve announcement, Strategy founder and CEO Michael Saylor immediately responded in the comment section : A step in the right direction. He then posted : Welcome to join the Bitcoin camp.
Previously, Matt Cole, CEO of ETF issuer Strive, wrote to GameStop Chairman and CEO Ryan Cohen on February 24, suggesting that GameStop shift its nearly $5 billion cash reserves to Bitcoin and turn the company into the top Bitcoin treasury company in the gaming industry. Cole said that GameStop has significantly reduced its operating losses in the past two years and has offset these deficits with interest income from cash holdings generated by equity financing, but the companys core challenges remain: physical retail is in decline and consumer preferences are shifting to digital game downloads. As an asset management company that holds GameStop shares through exchange-traded funds, Strive believes that GameStop has an incredible opportunity to change its financial future by becoming a Bitcoin treasury company in the gaming industry.
Saul Rejwan, managing partner of Masterkey, an early-stage cryptocurrency venture capital firm, also believes that Bitcoins role as a corporate reserve asset is no longer marginalized, and is becoming an option for companies that want to fight inflation.
But some people still raised objections - Jason Calacanis, an early investor in Uber and Robinhood, questioned GameStops Bitcoin reserve strategy, believing that this approach may be just a gimmick and has no viable business model. He said: If you are a public company that cant come up with a business model, then buy Bitcoin. If Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor wants to buy $1 trillion worth of Bitcoin, it may be a good suggestion. It is ironic that Strategys business is like air and there is no business model other than buying BTC. In the eyes of these traditional investors, raising the companys stock price by buying BTC is still very unorthodox.
Of course, Gamestop officials did not completely copy Strategy’s BTC reserve strategy - only buying but not selling - in its 10-K filing, Gamestop officials revealed , “We have not set an upper limit on our Bitcoin holdings and may sell the Bitcoin we hold.”
The twin effects of cryptocurrencies and U.S. stocks: U.S. stock tokenization and cryptocurrency U.S. stockization
It is foreseeable that with Gamestop joining the BTC strategic reserve camp, signs of the tokenization of U.S. stocks trend, which is opposite to the BTC ETF and ETH ETF, have gradually emerged.
Combining past cases of US listed companies, countless listed companies need to use BTC as an anti-inflation asset to preserve and increase the value of the companys assets; they can also use it to raise market profit expectations and thus increase the companys stock price.
A new path for TradFi and DeFi: FundFi
At the same time, another manifestation of the tokenization of U.S. stocks is the tokenization of investment funds.
Previously, according to TokenFi, Cathie Wood, the founder of Ark Invest, is preparing to tokenize the Ark Invest fund. Speaking at the Digital Asset Summit in New York, she said: “We think tokenization will be huge, and we hope to tokenize the venture fund (ARKVX) or the Digital Asset Revolution Fund.”
Of course, compared to the tokenization of RWA assets, although the US crypto regulatory environment has ushered in a period of relaxation due to Trumps coming to power, this process is still facing obstacles from US supervision and regulations.
The post-crypto IPO era after Coinbase is here: Kraken, sToro are ready to go
Combined with the previous certain news that the US crypto IPO will soon welcome the US exchange Kraken , the Israeli trading platform eToro , and many cryptocurrency ETFs are in the process of application, perhaps one day in the future, cryptocurrencies will also be able to go public on the US stock market. At that time, the afterglow of ICO may be repeated in the form of crypto IPO.
Of course, perhaps when that day comes, the decentralized space of cryptocurrency will be further compressed. Whether this is a blessing or a curse remains to be seen.
