Business

GameStop stock slides 23% after announcing strategy shift and plans to buy $1.3 billion worth of Bitcoin

Published

6 days ago

March 27, 2025

Shares of Bitcoin.

The company said Tuesday its board voted unanimously to raise $1.3 billion to purchase Bitcoin, while simultaneously closing a “significant number” of retail stores. Although the news was greeted with a 14% same-day stock bump, the initial excitement faded quickly. On Thursday, shares of the embattled video game retailer were down 23% over the past 24 hours.

GameStop’s new plan involves investing a portion of the company’s “cash or future debt and equity issuances” in Bitcoin, according to an SEC filing. The company will raise money for Bitcoin purchases by offering convertible senior notes—a combination of debt and equity financing—to their investors. The goal of the new investment strategy is to “provide sufficient liquidity to meet the day-to-day financial obligations of the Company, and to optimize investment returns,” the company said in the SEC filing.

GameStop has been struggling for years, and played a starring role in one of the most bizarre business stories of the decade thus far, after the company’s stock unexpectedly skyrocketed in 2021 thanks to a popular uprising of retail investors. But despite the wild share price boost (which was later turned into a movie) the company is confronting a long-term shift in customer appetites over the past decade from physical to digital video games. GameStop reported a 28% decrease in sales from 2023 to 2024, falling from $5.3 billion to $3.8 billion, according to an SEC filing from Tuesday, and it closed a quarter of its locations within the last year.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.

GameStop isn’t the only company to change their business model to focus more on crypto investing. Software company Strategy adopted Bitcoin as a reserve asset in 2020, and has seen its stock price surge over 3,000% in the last 5 years after amassing 500,000 Bitcoins. The company’s stock has become attractive to investors who want access to Bitcoin’s price movements, but don’t want to hold the currency directly.

But while that plan has worked out for Strategy so far, it may not work for other companies. Michael Patcher, an analyst at investment management firm Wedbush Securities, told Fortune that by comparison, GameStop’s stock will be more expensive and offer less exposure to Bitcoin.

“There is an opportunity for corporations to buy cryptocurrency that doesn’t exist for individual investors, so that explains some of Microstrategy’s appeal,” Patcher said, referring to Strategy by its old name. “However, Microstrategy trades at a lower premium to its liquid assets than GameStop trades.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Business

How bosses can handle the new unruly office after an increase in workplace incivility

Published

22 minutes ago

April 2, 2025

Jace Porter

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Business

The alleged Deel spy just admitted to corporate espionage in a major scandal rocking the HR world

Published

54 minutes ago

April 2, 2025

Jace Porter

A man accused of corporate espionage in a scandal rocking the world of HR has confessed to gathering intelligence on one company and passing along information to its rival, according to a new court filing.

Keith O’Brien, who is accused of acting as a spy for HR software firm Deel, submitted an affidavit to an Irish court this week in which he says he was paid by Deel to disclose confidential information about its competitor Rippling, another HR software company. He says co-founder and CEO of Deel Alex Bouaziz directly suggested he keep his job at Rippling and work as an inside man.

“I recall him specifically mentioning James Bond,” O’Brien wrote. “I asked him what he meant. He said he would offer me a monetary award if I agreed to spy on Rippling for Deel.”

Deel did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. Rippling did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad posted parts of the affidavit on X Tuesday, writing that Bouaziz “personally orchestrated his company’s alleged spy scheme, the spy said in a full confession

O’Brien writes that he was asked to provide Bouaziz with information regarding Rippling’s “ways of doing things” which he inferred to mean corporate strategy, customer insights and other confidential company information. O’Brien says he communicated with Bouaziz multiple times per day, and even on weekends. In November, he says he was awarded $6,000 for the insights he passed along, and continued to receive payments monthly in exchange for valuable information, according to the court filing.

At one point, when Rippling began to suspect that something was wrong, O’Brien claims he was asked by Deel’s legal team to purchase a burner phone from Deel’s lawyers, destroy his old one with an axe, and shove it down his mother-in-law’s drain, according to the court affidavit. He further alleges that he was advised by lawyers for Deel that he should leave Ireland and fly with his family to Dubai, and that Deel would pay for his accommodations.

O’Brien says that in March, he agreed to meet with Rippling’s legal team for an interview, and wrote that he was fearful of his safety “given the power and wealth of the individuals involved.”

“I was getting sick of concealing this lie,” he wrote in the affidavit. “I realized that I was harming myself and my family to protect Deel.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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