Video game retailer and Funko Pop depository GameStop has announced that it has purchased over 4,500 Bitcoin. It’s estimated that the company spent at least $500 million on the cryptocurrency transaction. GameStop stock dropped as a result of the news.
On Wednesday, the retailer announced in a brief one-sentence press release that the company had purchased 4,710 Bitcoin. It posted the news on social media and received thousands of replies and shares, most people reacting with confusion and bemusement. GameStop didn’t disclose how much it spent on Bitcoin, but some napkin math done by Investors.com estimates that it likely spent about $515,700,000 on the popular cryptocurrency. Over half a billion dollars.
Earlier this year, the slowly dying GameStop—mostly propped up at this point by its pandemic-era memestock windfall—announced that it was going to invest $1.3 billion into cryptocurrency. It announced this plan as it closed more stores and further pivoted away from selling video games.
“GameStop today announced that its board has unanimously approved an update to its investment policy to add Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset,” the company wrote in a press release published on March 25. “We have not set a maximum amount of bitcoin we may accumulate, and may sell any bitcoin we may acquire,” it explained in a follow-up SEC filing.
“The company has once again accelerated store closures in an attempt to save its way to prosperity, and its plans to enter the trading-card business and to invest in cryptocurrency are striking in their lack of specificity,” said Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter in March.
At this point, it’s starting to look like the Switch 2 might be the last console launch GameStop is around for before it fully shifts into a Bitcoin company that just happens to sell Funko Pops and novelty t-shirts on the side. I do wonder how much money GameStop will make when it tries to sell some or all of its crypto at a later date. If justice exists in the universe, they’ll be offered about $5 in store credit.
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