Umar Farooq
GameStop Is Trying to Buy eBay for $56 Billion — And Its Entire Bitcoin Stash Could Be the First Casualty
Just when you thought GameStop couldn’t get any stranger — it somehow outdid itself. (GameStop Stock Crash Bitcoin 2026)
The same meme stock that launched a thousand Reddit threads, ruined several hedge funds, and turned ordinary investors into overnight legends is back in the headlines. But this time the plot twist isn’t a short squeeze or a celebrity tweet. This time, GameStop wants to buy one of the biggest e-commerce platforms on the planet.
And its entire Bitcoin treasury might be the first thing it sacrifices to make it happen.
The $56 Billion Bid That Sent Everything Into Chaos
GameStop Corp. is falling again because its new plan is not small nor easy to finance. The retailer wants to buy eBay in a cash-and-stock deal worth about $56 billion — while GameStop itself is worth less than $12 billion. That is why traders are not treating this like a clean takeover story. They are treating it like a funding problem with a stock chart attached. Rank Math
Read those numbers again. GameStop — worth under $12 billion — wants to buy eBay for $56 billion. That’s like a corner store trying to acquire Walmart. And the market reacted exactly the way you’d expect.
The offer prices eBay at $125 per share — above its last close before the bid, and far above where eBay traded when GameStop began buying shares on February 4. But the market still pushed GameStop down 10%. eBay rose about 5% to near $109 — still well under the bid price. That gap says investors are not convinced this deal will survive. Rank Math
CEO Ryan Cohen went on CNBC to defend the move — and his quotes were nothing short of extraordinary. Cohen told CNBC: “It’s transformational. Not just for GameStop, but ultimately, within the capital markets. This is something that really has never been done before within the history of the capital markets. If it works, it’s genius. If it doesn’t work, it will be totally foolish.” Digitalmarketingtraining
Genius or totally foolish. The CEO of GameStop said that about his own deal. On live television.
Michael Burry Just Bailed — And That’s a Very Big Signal
If there’s one name in finance that makes investors pay attention when he moves — it’s Michael Burry. The man who predicted and profited from the 2008 housing crash, immortalized in the film The Big Short, had been quietly backing GameStop since 2019.
He just sold everything.
Michael Burry sold his full GameStop position after the bid became public. He told subscribers of his Substack newsletter: “I sold my entire GME position. Any which way I sliced it, the Instant Berkshire thesis was never compatible.” He also said GameStop was the first stock he had sold since starting the newsletter. His issue was debt — a deal this large could force GameStop to borrow heavily, issue stock, or build a financing package that changes the whole story for shareholders. Rank Math
The man who bet against the entire US housing market and won — walked away from GameStop the moment the eBay deal was announced. That’s not a detail you ignore.
GameStop announced the bid on Sunday. The proposal is unsolicited and nonbinding, so eBay has not agreed to anything. Ryan Cohen told CNBC he had not yet started talks with eBay management — saying: “We are just starting. For obvious reasons, eBay is a public company, there’s all kinds of perverse financial incentives from the board to the management team. So there’s only one way to approach something like this.” Rank Math
An unsolicited, nonbinding bid. For a company four times its own size. That eBay’s board hasn’t agreed to. And whose management GameStop’s CEO hasn’t even called yet.
The Bitcoin Question Nobody Can Ignore
Here’s where the story gets genuinely fascinating for crypto investors — because GameStop’s $368 million Bitcoin stash is now directly in the crosshairs of this deal.
GameStop approved Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset and bought 4,710 BTC for $513 million in May 2025. It then used that stash as collateral with Coinbase for an options strategy meant to earn yield while keeping exposure to BTC. Right now, Bitcoin is mostly a balance-sheet asset for GameStop. Rank Math
But that balance sheet is about to face enormous pressure. GameStop’s $55.5 billion eBay takeover bid puts its $368 million Bitcoin stash in the crosshairs — reviving the question of whether its Bitcoin holdings could be sold to fund the expansion. Semrush
The journey of GameStop’s Bitcoin has been a saga of its own. GameStop disclosed that nearly all of its 4,710 Bitcoin were pledged to Coinbase as collateral for a covered-call options strategy — writing short-dated call options with strike prices between $105,000 and $110,000 to generate premium income, capping its upside on Bitcoin while maintaining exposure. As a result, GameStop no longer holds its Bitcoin directly and now records it as a receivable rather than a directly held asset. Web Community
In plain English — GameStop doesn’t actually hold its Bitcoin anymore. It handed the coins to Coinbase as collateral for a complicated options play, and now the Bitcoin sits on Coinbase’s books while GameStop holds a receivable. The coins are effectively encumbered — tied up in a derivatives position — at the exact moment the company needs maximum financial flexibility to pursue a $56 billion acquisition.
The timing could not be worse.
How Did We Get Here? The Full Bitcoin Timeline
For anyone just catching up, here’s the GameStop crypto story from the beginning:
May 2025 — GameStop’s board unanimously approved Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, joining a growing trend of publicly traded companies using BTC as a balance-sheet hedge. The company raised $1.3 billion through convertible notes to fund the purchase — and GME stock dropped nearly 25% on the announcement as investors expressed concern over the dilutive impact and high crypto volatility. Google Support
October-December 2025 — The value of GameStop’s Bitcoin treasury fell by $9.2 million in three months as Bitcoin dropped from $115,500 to around $90,000 — a 19% decline driven partly by the largest single liquidation cascade in crypto history. GameStop’s stock fell more than 3% on the quarterly earnings report, and the company acknowledged it may need to sell Bitcoin as part of treasury management operations. SEOTesting
January 2026 — GameStop transferred its entire 4,710 BTC — worth roughly $420 million — to Coinbase Prime, sparking speculation the company was preparing to exit its Bitcoin position entirely. The move would have locked in an estimated loss of around $84 million at then-current prices. Brixtemplates
March 2026 — The mystery of the transfer was solved — GameStop had pledged its Bitcoin to Coinbase as collateral for a covered-call options strategy with strike prices between $105,000 and $110,000. The filing showed a $0.7 million liability linked to the options and a $2.3 million unrealized gain — but also a $59.7 million unrealized loss tied to Bitcoin’s overall price decline. Web Community
May 2026 — The eBay bid drops. Burry sells. GME crashes 10%. And the Bitcoin stash, already encumbered as options collateral, suddenly faces new questions about whether it gets liquidated to fund a deal that most of Wall Street thinks is impossible.
The Tantalizing Crypto Question
Here’s the angle that has the crypto community buzzing — even though GameStop hasn’t confirmed anything about it.
GameStop has not said it will plug Bitcoin into eBay payments. Still, the question is now sitting there in plain sight: what happens if a company holding BTC buys a marketplace with 135 million active buyers? eBay brings reach across 190 markets and nearly $80 billion in 2025 gross merchandise volume. Rank Math
Think about that for a second. If GameStop somehow pulls off this acquisition — an enormous if — it would control an e-commerce platform serving 135 million active users across 190 countries. With Bitcoin on its balance sheet. And a CEO who clearly wants to do something audacious with it.
Bitcoin is mostly a balance-sheet asset right now for GameStop — ETFs helped bring institutions in, but daily spending still faces fees, taxes, and awkward user habits. But eBay brings reach that no crypto company has ever had access to overnight. Rank Math
Nobody is saying this will happen. But the possibility alone — Bitcoin payments integrated into one of the world’s largest marketplaces — is exactly the kind of mass-adoption scenario that crypto bulls have dreamed about for years.
What Does the Market Actually Think?
The honest answer is that Wall Street is deeply skeptical — and has been about GameStop’s crypto strategy from the very beginning.
Only two analysts now cover GameStop stock, and the consensus sits at Reduce — projecting a 40% downside. Institutions, which own about 30% of the shares, moved from net buying to net selling. Their selling, along with elevated short interest, creates significant resistance against any retail-driven momentum. Google
And the eBay bid has made things significantly worse. The mathematics of the deal simply don’t add up in most analysts’ models — a sub-$12 billion company acquiring a $56 billion target would require debt issuance, massive stock dilution, or both. Either path damages existing shareholders considerably.
Ryan Cohen described GameStop’s acquisition ambitions as “way more compelling than Bitcoin” — declining to confirm whether the company plans to sell its BTC to fund future deals. Digitalmarketingtraining
“Way more compelling than Bitcoin.” From the same CEO who approved a $513 million Bitcoin purchase less than twelve months ago. That whiplash is giving investors whiplash of their own.
Read More: Katie Haun Raises $1B to Rebuild Finance With Crypto and AI
GameStop’s story has always defied conventional financial logic — and this latest chapter is no different.
A company worth $12 billion is chasing a $56 billion target. Its Bitcoin stash is pledged as collateral for options trades. The man who inspired the original meme rally just walked away. And the CEO is comparing his deal to something that has “never been done before in the history of capital markets.”
Before any crypto payment dream matters, GameStop has to show how it pays for eBay. That is the only question that matters right now. Rank Math
If Ryan Cohen somehow pulls this off — buying eBay, integrating Bitcoin payments, and creating a crypto-native e-commerce empire — it will be one of the greatest corporate transformations in modern history.
If he doesn’t — and the odds say he probably won’t — GameStop’s Bitcoin experiment ends not with a bang, but with a liquidation to fund a deal that never closed.
Either way, this is the most entertaining story in finance right now. And crypto investors should be watching every single development very closely.
Genius or totally foolish. Even the CEO isn’t sure which one it’ll be. But the next few weeks will tell us everything.
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