No surprise here, GameStop (GME) produced another dreadful year of results in 2024. The gaming retailer reported sales last year crashed 27%. Adjusted operating profits tanked 94%. Sales fell by double-digits in every region GameStop operates, most importantly its largest market the US – sales declined 24.9%. The culprit? Persistent weakness in the gaming software industry as people are back in offices working and games can run more than $60 a pop. But the awful year for GameStop isn’t the headline maker for the company’s latest earnings release day. Nope, it’s the company saying it will now have an investment committee led by controversial chairman and CEO Ryan Cohen that will aim to invest in bitcoin (BTC-USD). The company has $4.775 billion in cash and thousands of store leases coming up for renewal, so it has the funds to dabble in such a bitcoin pivot. The question is this: should GameStop be considered a struggling retailer anymore? Or something else in the mold of Michael Saylor’s bitcoin buying former software play MicroStrategy (MSTR), now known as Strategy? Will Cohen turn it into a crypto trading platform like Robinhood (HOOD) and Coinbase (COIN)? Is he trying to follow Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B) by taking a failed operation and building around it a highly lucrative investment portfolio? Who knows! But no doubt the perception of GameStop has just changed.

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Yahoo Finance’s Opening Bid is produced by Langston Sessoms