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Ahmed Barakat
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GameStop submitted a non-binding $55.5 billion offer to acquire eBay at $125 per share on Sunday, proposing to fund the deal with $9.4 billion in cash and liquid investments plus up to $20 billion in financing backed by TD Securities.
The bid represents a 46% premium to eBay’s share price from early February, when GameStop began quietly building a 5% economic stake through shares and derivatives.
Now the crypto market has a single question: what happens to the $368 million Bitcoin treasury sitting on GameStop’s balance sheet?
CEO Ryan Cohen called the acquisition plan “way more compelling than bitcoin” and left the door open to selling the company’s BTC holdings to help finance the deal. That framing alone moved the conversation from corporate novelty to live market event.
Bitcoin is trading near $81,000, meaning GameStop’s 4,709 BTC position carries meaningful liquidation value, and meaningful sell pressure if Cohen pulls the trigger.
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Should GameStop Liquidate Its $368M Bitcoin to Fund the eBay Deal?
GameStop’s $55.5 billion M&A bid dwarfs its current balance sheet, even with $9.4 billion in cash and a $20 billion financing commitment; the math is tight. Cohen explicitly described the eBay acquisition as a higher-priority capital deployment than bitcoin, and he confirmed GameStop has the “ability to issue stock in order to get the deal done.” If stock issuance proves insufficient or dilutive, the $368 million Bitcoin treasury becomes an obvious funding lever.
At current BTC prices, liquidating the full position would add roughly $368 million in cash, big but not big enough for a $55.5 billion transaction. The supply-side impact on Bitcoin markets would be limited in isolation, but the signal would carry weight: a company that adopted a Bitcoin Treasury reserve less than 18 months ago abandoning the position under M&A pressure is not a bullish corporate narrative.
GameStop shifted 4,709 BTC to Coinbase Prime as part of a covered call options strategy, generating income while retaining exposure. That is not the behavior of a company planning to dump.
If the eBay deal closes and the combined entity retains the BTC position, GameStop-eBay would control a Bitcoin treasury sitting alongside 135 million active buyers across 190 markets and nearly $80 billion in annual gross merchandise volume. Analysts have flagged this scenario as one that “could open the door for BTC payments integration” at serious scale.
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