GameStop Bets Big on Bitcoin While Ethereum’s Gaming Ecosystem Bleeds Out
Retail’s meme-stock darling just doubled down on crypto—GameStop quietly loaded up on Bitcoin this week, signaling a bullish pivot despite the sector’s volatility. Meanwhile, another wave of Ethereum-based games shuttered, leaving pixelated dreams and unpaid devs in their wake.
The Bitcoin Play:
No official announcement, no fireworks—just cold, hard BTC added to the balance sheet. Classic hedge move or desperate grasp for relevance? Wall Street analysts are already placing bets.
Etheream’s Ghost Towns:
Three more gaming projects called it quits, citing ’unsustainable gas fees’ and ’lack of player retention.’ Translation: even degens got bored watching their NFTs depreciate.
Final thought: When traditional retailers ape into crypto and blockchain games keep failing, maybe the real ’play-to-earn’ was the friends we liquidated along the way.
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GameStop, the video game retailer that’s made waves in recent years as a meme stock, announced Wednesday that it purchased 4,710 Bitcoin, worth $512 million at the time, to establish a corporate Bitcoin treasury. This follows a $1.5 billion convertible notes offering that closed at the start of April, after the company said in late March that it would add BTC as a reserve asset.
CEO Ryan Cohen said he views bitcoin as a hedge against currency devaluation and systemic risk, and added that he won’t reveal future purchase timing or strategy. GameStop joins other public companies following Strategy’s Bitcoin playbook, including Tesla and crypto mining firms holding billions in Bitcoin. Other companies are diversifying beyond Bitcoin, with SharpLink Gaming recently raising $425 million to buy Ethereum.
GameStop became a meme stock in 2021 when Reddit users triggered a massive short squeeze against hedge funds. Cohen acknowledged in an interview at Bitcoin 2025 this week that the company was struggling when he joined in 2021, facing pressure from the shift to digital game downloads.
Shares in GameStop (GME) fell sharply on Wednesday, down 11% by the end of trading, and continued sliding on Thursday. On Friday, ROSE less than 1% to finish below a price of $30, down almost 3% over the last week.
Two Ethereum-based games on the Ronin network, Realms of Alurya and Wonder Wars, have gone offline due to funding difficulties, highlighting broader struggles in crypto gaming.
Hello Monster, developer of Wonder Wars, said it couldn’t secure necessary funding for continued live service operations or achieve sustainable profitability metrics. The team decided against launching its utility token, calling it dishonest to rely on pure speculation.
Realms of Alurya faces similar closure after claiming that publisher Treasure abruptly terminated its exclusivity contract and funding support, amid Treasure’s recent restructuring and pivot to AI. The developers admitted that over-reliance on their publisher was a mistake, saying they were "shocked" by the sudden funding withdrawal that derailed their yearly roadmap.
These shutdowns reflect a growing trend in crypto gaming, with recent closures including Nyan Heroes, Ember Sword, The Mystery Society, and The Walking Dead: Empires (set for a July end), with commonly cited issues including funding struggles and/or a lack of players. Gaming tokens have also struggled, with only Immutable’s IMX remaining in the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap.
ICYMI
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Is BloodLoop still alive? ☠️
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