Original Title: "GameStop Runs Away, Saylor Keeps Buying"
Original Source: Deep Tide TechFlow
"This strategy is more attractive than Bitcoin."
GameStop's CEO Ryan Cohen sat in front of the CNBC camera and said this sentence in a tone almost casual, as if he had just decided not to abandon a $500 million investment, but to change the lunch menu.
But in the crypto market, these words are as devastating as a bomb.
According to data from the on-chain analytics company CryptoQuant, GameStop has transferred all of its held Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime around January 23, with a total outflow of approximately 4,710 BTC, valued at about $450 million.
This action, in the eyes of crypto veterans, has only one meaning: get ready to sell.
Next, Cohen accepted consecutive interviews with the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, in which he spoke extensively about acquisition plans and vowed to transform GameStop into an investment holding platform "similar to Berkshire Hathaway." When journalists pressed him about the Bitcoin strategy, he made that statement.
Sarcastic? From entering to preparing to leave, less than a year.
The end of an impersonation show
On February 8, 2025, Cohen met with Michael Saylor, co-founder of Strategy.
Saylor was at the peak of his life. He changed his Twitter bio to "Bitcoin Maximalist" and posted long sermons about Bitcoin every day.
He said in the podcast that Bitcoin is a "technological phoenix" that will be reborn from the ashes of traditional finance.
According to Cryptopolitan, Strategy held over $4.7 billion worth of bitcoin at the time.
This meeting sparked market speculation that GameStop might follow Strategy's example and include bitcoin on its balance sheet. GameStop's stock price rose 4% that day.
What did Cohen learn? At least he learned how to create hype.
Three months later, GameStop announced its entry. According to Reuters, GameStop spent $513 million to buy 4,710 bitcoins, with an average cost of about $108,917.
The stock price briefly rose after the news came out.
But looking closely at this deal, problems arise.
The company's financial report as of February 1, 2025, shows that GameStop has approximately $480 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. $50 million in Bitcoin? That's only 10.4% of the cash reserves.
This is not All In, this is testing the waters.
What about Saylor? During the same period, he almost entirely put the balance sheet of MicroStrategy on Bitcoin and kept issuing bonds and adding leverage to buy more. That's true faith. What Cohen did was just speculation.
"From the proportion of funds, subsequent actions, and communication methods, Bitcoin seems more like an option rather than a core identity anchor," said an analyst who wished to remain anonymous. "Saylor put the entire company on it. What about Cohen? He bought a bit and then just left it alone."
In the third quarter of 2025, the price of Bitcoin remains high. GameStop did not increase its holdings, while Strategy was buying almost every week, and the gap was sown here.
The two sides of the flywheel
To understand why GameStop is running, you first need to understand the rules of this game.
The core logic of a corporate Bitcoin treasury strategy can be summarized in one word: flywheel.
Issue stocks to raise money, buy Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin rises and pushes up the market capitalization, a higher market capitalization allows issuing more stocks, buying more Bitcoin, and the cycle repeats.
In a bull market, this is a money-printing machine.
From the first purchase in August 2020 to the end of 2025, the stock price increased 12.29 times. Bitcoin increased about 6.37 times during the same period, while the S&P 500 only increased 115%.
The effect is too shocking. In 2025, nearly 200 listed companies rushed in, stuffing Bitcoin into their balance sheets. According to K33's H1 report, Bitcoin treasury companies alone purchased 244,991 Bitcoins in the first half of 2025, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars in inflows.
But a flywheel has a fatal characteristic: it can spin backward.
In October 2025, Bitcoin reaches a historical high of about 126,000 U.S. dollars. Then it starts to fall.
By the end of December, $87,500. A drop of more than 30%.
The flywheel starts to work in reverse: the price of the coin drops, market capitalization falls, stock prices fall below net asset value, new shares cannot be issued at a premium, there is no money to buy more coins, investor confidence collapses, and market capitalization continues to fall.
The Strategy's market capitalization crashed from a premium of about three times the net asset value of Bitcoin holdings. By December 2025, analysis on Reddit indicated it was already at an 11% discount.
Not a premium. It's a discount.
The market no longer believes the flywheel will continue to turn. What did Saylor do at this point?
From December 29, 2025 to January 4, 2026, when Bitcoin was still in a downward channel and the company's stock price had halved from its peak, he announced the purchase of another 1,286 Bitcoins.
He said, "A Bitcoin price drop is a gift. Every decline is an opportunity to buy."
Where is Cohen? He transferred the coins to the trading platform.
Faced with the same paper loss: Strategy adds to the position, GameStop is preparing to run. The difference is not in the financial condition, but in the belief.
Three Paths
"The era of premium pricing has ended," said John Fakhoury, a senior analyst at Stacking Sats, in a market report. Surviving in this field requires two things: discipline and the ability to execute real business. Those who have left lack the former, and those who remain need to prove the latter.
GameStop? At least along the path of the Bitcoin treasury, it has neither chosen to commit to a long-term identity nor established a sustainable execution mechanism.
So, what about the future?
According to feasibility speculation, this field may evolve along three paths.
First, integration and concentration. The weak exit the field, and the strong reap the rewards. According to the Galaxy Digital 2026 crypto market outlook report, at least five Bitcoin treasury companies will sell their Bitcoin holdings or shut down completely this year. Where will these Bitcoins go? Part of them are absorbed by ETFs and retail investors, while another part is acquired at a discount by giants like Strategy. Ultimately, only a few companies may dominate the entire sector.
Second, model evolution. The simple "buy and hold" strategy has become ineffective. Some companies have begun to explore ways to generate cash flow without selling, and will subsequently attempt options trading, Bitcoin lending, structured products, and so on. But this requires professional expertise, which most followers lack.
Third, narrative downgrading. Bitcoin has been downgraded from a "revolutionary corporate asset allocation option" to "a high-volatility alternative asset." It can be allocated, but it's not worth going All In; it can be tried, but should not be the core strategy.
However, Ryan Cohen is taking the fourth path: a complete turnaround.
His goal is to transform GameStop into a company worth more than $100 billion, with business operations far beyond selling video games and collectibles. At its current market capitalization of about $11.5 billion, the stock price needs to rise 8.7 times.
Cohen is ambitious about this. To achieve this goal, he is considering acquiring a listed company.
When the tide goes out
Let's pull the camera back a bit.
Saylor believes that Bitcoin is the most important asset innovation in human history, and the decline is just noise; he will buy until his last breath.
Cohen said, thank you, but I saw something more attractive.
If Bitcoin rises to $500,000 in five years, Saylor becomes a deity, and Cohen becomes the "guy who sold at the bottom."
If Bitcoin enters a long-term bear market, Cohen's timely exit is seen as wise, while Saylor needs to pay about 700 million U.S. dollars annually for preferred stock dividends and bond interest.
Who is right or wrong? Time will give the answer.
But one thing is certain: GameStop's Bitcoin experiment will most likely become a footnote. When people look back on this history a few years later, they will remember Saylor, and remember the true believers who kept buying even in the darkest moments.
As for those hasty followers who come and go? The market has never lacked such characters. When the tide goes out, they are always the fastest to run away.
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