• Video game retailer GameStop said on Tuesday that it will start investing in bitcoin.
• GameStop's move follows software maker Strategy's bitcoin investments.
• Bitcoin is up 24% in the last year.

Videogame seller GameStop said it will now include bitcoin in its financial investments, and investors are piling in.

GameStop rose 8.3% after hours on Tuesday following the company's announcement that its board approved investing its cash and future debt into bitcoin. Shares of the struggling retailer jumped despite the company reporting a fourth-quarter revenue decline of 28%, to $1.28 billion, compared to the same period in 2023.

Last month, GameStop gained 10% after CNBC reported that the company was considering investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies using its $4.6 billion cash pile.

GameStop's move echoes the actions of software maker Strategy, which has been stockpiling bitcoin since October. Last week, the company added $10.7 million of the cryptocurrency, adding to its existing $41.6 billion of bitcoin. In early February, GameStop's CEO Ryan Cohen hinted at a similar decision by posting a photo of himself and Strategy cofounder Michael Saylor on X.

GameStop said it has not set a cap on the amount of the cryptocurrency it will hold and said that it can sell any bitcoin it acquires.

The decision comes weeks after pro-crypto President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies using tokens already owned by the government.

Companies including Tesla, Coinbase, Riot Platforms, and Block have invested in bitcoin. Some investors see companies with large bitcoin holdings as a safer proxy to investing in the cryptocurrency than doing it themselves.

Bitcoin is up 24% in the past year, boosted by a crypto-friendly US presidential administration.

Memestock frenzy

GameStop, which sells physical games and hardware, has been grappling with changes to the video gaming industry as more people shift toward digital downloads and streaming.

It was a major winner in the meme stock mania of January 2021, which involved throngs of inexperienced investors using the trading app Robinhood to buy stocks of companies they wanted to support. GameStop's stock has risen over 2,200% in the last five years but is down 19% so far this year.

Robinhood faced backlash for suddenly restricting trading on these meme stocks and for gamifying short-term investing, which critics say poses serious financial risks.

In 2021, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and Wall Street hedge fund managers were questioned in a congressional inquiry into the GameStop trading event. In 2023, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying that customer agreements allowed Robinhood to limit transactions.

• Trump, accompanied by Kid Rock, signed an executive order cracking down on concert ticket scalpers.
• The order criticized "unscrupulous middle-men" who profit from reselling tickets at an "enormous markup."
• The live entertainment industry has been marred by bots buying huge quantities of sought-after tickets.

President Donald Trump wants to target "unscrupulous middle-men" who resell concert tickets at an "enormous markup."

Trump, flanked by singer Kid Rock, signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Monday cracking down on "exploitative ticket scalping" and promising to change the US's live entertainment industry.

The order said it would "rigorously enforce" the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act of 2016, which prohibits the sale of tickets obtained by bypassing purchasing limits on online sites.

In the Oval Office, Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, stressed the problem of people using bots to buy concert tickets in large volumes and selling them at markups to make profits.

The 54-year-old singer, wearing a loudly patriotic red and blue outfit for the occasion, thanked Trump for getting the order out in "lightning speed."

"I know a lot of artists and a lot of fans who love, love concerts and music, are going to be very appreciative," he said.

The war for concert tickets

Over the past few years, the live entertainment industry has been hit by complaints of bots snapping up huge quantities of highly sought-after tickets, leaving fans empty-handed.

The avalanche of bot buyers affected Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, which ran from March 2023 to December 2024. In 2022, Live Nation, which owns ticketing platform Ticketmaster, saw 14 million people trying to buy the tour's presale tickets, way more than the 1.5 million "verified" fans expected to be in the online queue.

"We had 14 million people hit the site, including bots — another story — which are not supposed to be there," Live Nation's chairman Greg Maffei told CNBC in November 2022 while apologizing to fans unable to secure tickets.

Ticketmaster then canceled its general public ticket sale, saying it had run out of tickets after the presale event, drawing ire from Swift's fan base.

To be sure, Trump's new executive order is not the first governmental effort that crack down on concert-linked scams.

In February 2023, before ticket sales for Beyoncé's Renaissance world tour kicked off, the Senate Judiciary Committee tweeted, "We're watching, @Ticketmaster."

In September 2023, the IRS introduced a new law requiring ticketing sites like StubHub and Ticketmaster to hand over data of sellers who make more than $600.

Representatives for Trump did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.