Bitcoin and the Great Retail Bankruptcy Trade

“All my best investments were in networks that everyone needed, no one could stop, and few understood. Bitcoin is the monetary network.”

~ Michael Saylor

Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com:

With more economic crisis coming, this could be the great retail trade of the century.

Microstrategy took the trade and within a year their stock 10x’d, could it work for everyone’s favorite memestock?

Here’s the one company that could define the Great Retail Bankruptcy Trade:

GameStop closed 300 locations across the United States last year.

The Daily Mail reports:

GameStop plots mass store closures after shutting 300 locations in past year

“GameStop has announced that it plans to shut down more stores amid dwindling sales…

Worryingly, they said they would shut down more outlets than it has done in the past few years.

In March, GameStop announced it had closed 287 stores worldwide over the previous 12 months, leaving it with just over 4,000 physical locations.

GameStop was at the center of the ‘meme stock’ trading frenzy during the Covid-19 pandemic which sent its stock to dizzying levels – but it has been struggling with sales and profitability.”

They sold their assets, cut costs, streamlined operations and…

Turned it all into cash.

Now the company is sitting on $4.6 Billion in cash, wondering what to do with it all.

So they’re looking around.

Back in 2020, MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor saw the price of Bitcoin go up, researched, and then invested billions of the company’s cash into purchasing Bitcoin – placing it on their balance sheet.

Then in 2021, their stock nearly 10X’d because the value of Bitcoin had increased so drastically.

Here’s what the Microstrategy(MSTR) chart looks like now:

Now, as we see more and more retailers slowly shutter their doors to a dwindling economy, and changing markets due to technology, GameStop may be considering a large investment in Bitcoin too.

CNBC reports:

GameStop is exploring investments in alternative asset classes, including crypto and bitcoin in particular, three sources said. 

Shares of GameStop soared as much as 20% in extended trading following the news…

Last weekend, CEO Ryan Cohen posted a photo on social media site X with Michael Saylor, co-founder and chairman of MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin. 

However, Saylor is not involved in GameStop’s discussion about crypto investments at this time, two of the sources said…

Under Cohen’s leadership, GameStop has focused on cutting costs and streamlining operations to ensure the business is profitable even though it is not growing. 

As of Nov. 2, the company had amassed a $4.6 billion cash pile and has been using those funds for investments, according to a December securities filing.”

Are Microstrategy and GameStop drawing a roadmap for other failing retailers?

Even for companies that are not?

Maybe those that want to avoid the devaluation of the dollar and maintain the value of their company should be considering what GameStop is…

And what MicroStrategy has already done.

For corporations and small businesses, buying Bitcoin and then placing in their balance sheet could become the Great Retail Bankruptcy Trade of the century.

I don’t know for sure, but so far, it’s worked for MicroStrategy (and numerous other companies).

Maybe GameStop too.

Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com.