- Ryan Cohen recently posted an untitled picture of himself standing next to Bitcoin enthusiast Michael Saylor, the CEO of the company formerly known as Microstrategy. Now CNBC reports the GameStop CEO may use some of the cash in his war chest to buy BTC coins that have soared in value recently.
Could video game retailer GameStop morph into a Bitcoin play just like Microstrategy?
An untitled February 8 post by CEO Ryan Cohen simply depicting him standing next to Michael Saylor, who transformed his software company into a levered play on the price of BTC tokens, sparked speculation GameStop might diversify its cash pile into the digital currency.
— Ryan Cohen (@ryancohen) February 8, 2025
On Thursday, CNBC reported three informed sources saying the company was interested in investing in alternative asset classes.
These include crypto and BTC in particular, which has risen from around $60,000 to $100,000 in the past six months.
Gains have been helped by the election of crypto enthusiast Donald Trump to the presidency.
Shares in GameStop are up 5% in trading at the time of publication.
No real plan or strategy, but a lot of spare cash
More than four years after Cohen’s investment firm first blasted former management for lacking a future strategy and 18 months since he seized control, the Chewy founder has failed to present a clear plan for the company.
So far, Cohen has shrunk GameStop’s unprofitable brick-and-mortar footprint, most recently shedding its Italian stores and outright shutting down its German operations during the fiscal fourth quarter that just ended.
Revenue in the first nine months fell by 27% to just $2.54 billion.
GameStop only broke even during the period thanks to $109 million it earned on its portfolio of short-dated securities and T-bills, which is throwing off cash at a 4.7% annualized rate unadjusted for inflation.
It has the cash to fund a transformation plan, having raised $3.45 billion in net proceeds through three separate stock issues—all money it pocketed with no strings attached.
But no plan has been forthcoming. It hasn’t helped that GameStop does not include an outlook for the fiscal year in its financial filings or hold investor calls.
Microstrategy pioneered adoption of BTC as an investment story
Its strategy at this point is boiled down to achieving profitability while being “the leading destination for games and entertainment products” through physical and digital retail—a business that, as its financials testify, is shrinking.
But it remains effectively a black box, less transparent in some ways than a hedge fund that must disclose its quarterly positions.
Since its core video game and collectibles business has now become little more than a side gig, like Microstrategy's software sales and licensing operations, it stands to reason that it could follow its lead.
The company, now calling itself Strategy, engages in outright financial engineering, acting as “the world’s first and largest Bitcoin treasury company” and selling convertible debt to fund its BTC purchases.
The problem for GameStop is whether there is any demand in an investment story as the world’s second company to adopt Bitcoin as its primary reserve asset.
The games retailer did not respond to a request from Fortune for comment.
