GameStop’s $76M Bitcoin Bet Goes Cold: Holdings Land at Coinbase Amid Crypto Winter
GameStop's crypto gambit hits a major snag. The retail trading icon is reportedly staring down a $76 million loss on its Bitcoin treasury, with holdings now parked at Coinbase—a move that screams 'strategic repositioning' but smells like a classic capitulation.
The Unwinding
Forget moonshots. This is about damage control. The transfer to a major exchange platform signals a liquidity event, not a long-term HODL. It’s the corporate equivalent of selling your vintage baseball cards to pay the electric bill—a necessary, if painful, reality check.
Portfolio in Peril
Timing is everything, and GameStop’s appears brutal. Buying high in a hype cycle only to offload during a downturn is a masterclass in how traditional firms often get crypto exactly wrong. They treat digital gold like just another quarterly line item to be managed into the ground.
The Bigger Picture
This isn't just a bad trade—it’s a cautionary tale for corporate treasuries diving into volatile assets without the diamond-handed conviction of true believers. A $76 million 'unrealized loss' becomes very real the moment you need the cash. It’s the oldest story in finance: leverage and illiquidity are a toxic mix, even when dressed up in blockchain buzzwords.
One firm's loss is another's ledger entry. The coins haven't vanished; they've just changed wallets, providing a tidy spread for the exchange in the process. The crypto ecosystem feasts on volatility, regardless of which side of the trade you're on.
GameStop Has Transferred 4,710 BTC To Coinbase Prime
In a new post on X, on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant has revealed how GameStop just moved all its Bitcoin holdings to Coinbase Prime, the institutional prime brokerage wing of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. GameStop is an American videogame retailer that’s considered the largest chain of its kind in the world. In recent years, the company has seen a decline as physical gaming stores have increasingly lost relevance in the digital era.
In 2025, the struggling retailer diversified by adopting a Bitcoin treasury reserve, following in the footsteps of other firms like Strategy. As the chart below, shared by CryptoQuant, shows, the company bought 4,710 BTC between May 14th and 23rd. These purchases involved an average buying price of $107,900 per token, costing GameStop a total of $504 million.
It’s also visible in The Graph that the company has cleared out all of its wallets recently, with its total holdings dropping to zero. GameStop has made these moves as the asset has gone through a bearish turn since October.
As this other chart showcases, the firm’s reserve was trading a notable amount below its investment value before the outflows occurred.
According to CryptoQuant, the transfer of GameStop’s holdings to Coinbase Prime could be a sign that the retailer is preparing to sell, a move that WOULD lock in losses of around $76 million at current prices.
The potential sale of GameStop’s Bitcoin reserve has come alongside a significant number of store closures. According to a blog that compiles data using the retailer’s online store locator, 470 stores have so far either been confirmed to be closing or closed this January.
Back in 2021, GameStop was the highlight of a “meme stock” frenzy, in which its share price saw a 1,500% spike alongside a short squeeze over the course of two weeks.
Later in that year, the company decided to take a gamble on a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, attempting to ride the NFT craze of the period. Its platform hit the market in 2022, but it wasn’t long before GameStop started winding it down, and ultimately shuttered its doors in early 2024.
If the latest Bitcoin transactions represent sales, then it would mean that GameStop’s BTC treasury initiative has met a similar end as its NFT venture.
BTC Price
Bitcoin has returned to the $89,100 mark following this week’s pullback.
