Gamestop (GME), a retail video game chain, has decided to change the console cartridge and kick the board. With fall sales, its CEO Ryan Cohen launched a plan that includes the closure of branches in several regions and a new bet to continue at stake: buy Bitcoin (BTC).
On May 28, the company based in Grapevine, Texas, acquired 4,710 BTC and thus joined the group of companies that are accumulating Bitcoin in his treasury as a reserve assets. In total, GME would have spent between 420 and 471 million dollars, the equivalent of one tenth of the 4.7 billion dollars that he has available to his cash reserve.
This movement not only marked an important change for GME, but also brought it closer to another company that has already toured that path: Strategy (formerly Microstrategy). Not for anything Cohen met in a couple of opportunities with Michael Saylor, CEO of Strategy and a key figure in Bitcoin’s corporate adoption.
As Cryptonoticia has reported, since 2020, Saylor has implemented a mechanism to accumulate BTC as a reserve asset, financing these purchases by issuing convertible bonds, which has allowed him not to depend on the operational income of the company.
Currently, Strategy is the company that lies in the stock market with more BTC in its treasury, with a total of 580,250 BTC.
Now, it could be said that there are similarities between GME and Strategy for the fact that both companies decided to make investments in BTC. However, “MacroGirl”, a financial market analyst, warns A fundamental issue: “The big difference is that GME began its purchases when BTC quotes near historical maximums, around 100,000. When Mstr launched its BTC initiative in 2020, the price was around 10,000 dollars after a great fall.”
From this analysis the big question arises: can GME become the next Strategy or is he doing a very risky play? The analyst explains as follows: “I will not make predictions on the future price of BTC, but it is well known that the greatest profits are obtained when the assets recover from a fall, not when they already quote near historical maximums. Therefore, it is unlikely that GME experiences a rapid ascent like the one that Mstr had in 2020”.
And it is this difference in the entry moments that Open the debate on whether GME’s movement is a risk bet or the first step of something bigger. Above all, because until now Gamestop has not revealed its strategy publicly and it is difficult to establish whether it is an incursion to diversify its investment portfolio or it is the beginning of a transformation, such as the one that Strategy did.
So far, the only thing Cohen declared is that the purchase of BTC is a “coverage in front of currencies.” In this regard, the specialist says: “It sounds like it could be diverting the attention of the true strategic turn of the company, although it may be right. GME has maintained more than 4,000 million dollars in cash (presumably in American treasure bonds) for almost a year. Diversify to other coins with potential for appreciation is a reasonable, although risky strategy.”
Here it is necessary to pause some points raised by MacroGirl. During fiscal year 2024, GME sales collapsed by 27.5%, and the closure of stores in regions such as Europe, Canada, Australia and the United States evidenced the marking setback of their retail business.
In that context, it is not surprising that Cohen tries to redirect attention to the purchase of BTC. But why qualify it as risky if Bitcoin has demonstrated, over time, to be a resistant asset against inflation, economic turbulence and geopolitical tensions?
The risk, in this case, is not so much in the nature of the asset, but at the time of admission: Gamestop is buying when BTC quotes near historical maximums, which reduces the margin to capture rapid profits, unlike those who entered into bass phases of the market.
Therefore, to answer the question raised in the title, it will depend on the temporal frame of GME. If the company’s goal is to make BTC fast profits, it is a risky bet, although it is only a tenth of the reserve fund that the company has. In other words, currently the BTC price is above $ 100,000, which significantly limits the short -term revaluation potential and exposes GME to any price correction that the market experiences.
But, if you decide to implement a strategy HodlGME can become “the next Strategy.” On this point, MacroGirl says:
“Being able to follow Strategy’s steps is an advantage, although it could be said that Mstr’s assistance is not completely altruistic: GME and any other company that now turns to Bitcoin investments will indirectly help Strategy, since the demand will increase and potentially make Bitcoin prices upload.”
MacroGirl, financial market analyst.
This is because Bitcoin has a supply limited to 21 million units, and that Its broadcast is reduced every 4 years by an event known as halving. It is a factor that influences its medium and long -term price by simple supply and demand law: if more companies want BTC, the available offer is reduced and that will cause its price to raise. Precisely, this inherent shortage is what attracts more institutions and governments, such as El Salvador or the United States.
Thus, more than a distraction, Cohen gives signs that Gamestop is analyzing to reinvent himself in front of a retail sales model that does not offer future growth. Although the strategy is not known, the purchase of BTC can be the first step to be “the next Strategy”: A company whose main value is based on the accumulation of Bitcoin.
