Online game retailer GameStop has lately been closing shops throughout the U.S. The corporate shouldn’t be stopping with its most up-to-date set of closures from January as it’s at the moment getting ready to shut a “vital” quantity of shops within the close to future.
GameStop closing extra shops in favor of Bitcoin funding
GameStop disclosed its determination to shut extra shops in a latest submitting. Whereas specifics on which shops will likely be impacted will not be given as the corporate at the moment started a “complete retailer portfolio optimization assessment,” it does verify it anticipates a “vital quantity” of closures within the 2025 fiscal 12 months.
“We now have additionally initiated a complete retailer portfolio optimization assessment which includes figuring out shops for closure based mostly on many components, together with an analysis of present market situations and particular person retailer efficiency,” says GameStop within the submitting. “This assessment, amongst different issues, resulted within the closure of 590 shops in the US in fiscal 2024. Whereas this assessment is ongoing and a particular set of shops has not been recognized for closure, we anticipate closing a big variety of extra shops in fiscal 2025.”
As GameStop plans to shut extra shops throughout the fiscal 12 months, the corporate introduced it’ll spend money on cryptocurrencies, together with Bitcoin, as a treasury reserve asset.
“On March 25, 2025 we introduced that, as a part of our revisions to the Funding Coverage, the Board permitted the addition of Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, whereby a portion of our money or future debt and fairness issuances could also be invested in Bitcoin,” reads the corporate’s assertion. “We now have not set a most quantity of Bitcoin we could accumulate, and should promote any Bitcoin we could purchase.”
GlobalData Retail analyst Neil Saunders mentioned this transfer with CNN saying, “The pivot to Bitcoin is mostly a protection in opposition to irrelevance.” He continues saying it’s “an odd factor because it’s principally saying the technique isn’t retail however to behave as some form of cryptocurrency funding car.”
(Supply: CNN)