GameStop becomes surprise new player in bitcoin gold rush

The US electronics and video games retailer pulled off a shock move, buying $513m of crypto just as JD Vance gave political backing to the currencies.

- By Patricia Clarke

During a livestream of the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, Tim Kotzman, a crypto entrepreneur, was asked which companies traders should be paying attention to. “The obvious answer is GameStop,” he said.

GameStop ostensibly an electronics retailer had just bought 4,710 bitcoin worth roughly $513m (£380m) at current prices. The company shot to fame in 2021 as a “meme stock” after Reddit traders sent its share price soaring by 2,000%. But even by GameStop’s unpredictable standards, the move into crypto caught many in the traditional finance world by surprise.

At Bitcoin 2025, however, GameStop’s news went down a storm. At an expo hall in the Venetian hotel, in the heart of the US casino capital, crowds of crypto enthusiasts in bright orange cowboy hats hailed bitcoin’s political coming of age.

To whoops, the US vice-president, JD Vance, assured the crowd: “Crypto and digital assets, and particularly bitcoin, are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay”. He urged Congress to pass the Senate bill labelled the “Genius Act” to endorse stablecoins, a form of cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar. At the same conference, Donald Trump’s son Eric backed crypto against Wall Street. He said: “I hate using the word hate, but honestly, I would love to see some of the big banks go extinct.”