eBay killed it in six words. “Neither credible nor attractive.” Board chairman Paul Pressler sent the letter to GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen on Tuesday, rejecting the $56 billion takeover bid that had Wall Street skeptical from day one. The offer was half cash, half stock, backed by a $20 billion financing commitment from TD Securities and roughly $9.4 billion in GameStop cash.
That financing letter came with a condition nobody on the GameStop side wants to talk about: the combined company would need to maintain an investment-grade credit rating from at least two of the top three agencies. Moody’s already said the deal would be credit negative for eBay.
GameStop Holds 4,709 BTC. It Just Became Relevant Again.
GameStop holds roughly $368 million in bitcoin exposure through a covered-call options strategy. The company moved nearly all 4,709 BTC to Coinbase Prime in March, turning the position into a receivable rather than directly held coins.
Cohen has framed the eBay deal as “way more compelling than bitcoin.” That quote is doing a lot of work now. With the bid rejected, GameStop’s BTC position is one of the few discretionary assets the company can point to. Selling it would not fund a hostile bid by itself, but it is one of the only liquid pools Cohen controls. Corporate bitcoin treasuries have become strategic signals, and unwinding one sends a different kind of signal entirely.
Michael Burry Left. That Says Something.
Michael Burry, the investor who called the 2008 subprime collapse, exited his GameStop position after the eBay bid went public. His concern: the deal would load GameStop with debt and dilute shareholders. Burry does not issue press releases. He sells.
eBay shares have traded well below Cohen’s $125-per-share offer since the bid surfaced. That gap between offer price and market price is the market saying: this deal is not closing.
The Financing Gap Is the Real Story
GameStop had $9.4 billion in cash as of January 31. TD Securities committed up to $20 billion. The bid was $56 billion. That leaves a gap north of $26 billion. Where does it come from? Stock issuance dilutes existing holders. More debt risks the credit rating condition. Berkshire Hathaway sits on $373 billion in cash and still will not buy bitcoin. GameStop has a fraction of that and is trying to buy a company six times its size.
eBay also noted that TD Securities’ financing letter was the only document GameStop did not include in its own public disclosure. eBay released it instead. That detail landed hard.
What Happens to the Bitcoin Now
Cohen has two options. Walk away and keep the BTC. Or go hostile and potentially sell it to fund the fight. Other companies have bought bitcoin while posting losses. GameStop might be the first to sell bitcoin to fund an acquisition that everyone else says will not happen.
GameStop’s covered-call strategy generates premium income from the BTC position. Liquidating it does not just remove the bitcoin exposure. It removes a revenue stream. For a company burning cash and chasing a target that just publicly humiliated its bid, that trade-off matters.
eBay said six factors drove the rejection: standalone prospects, financing uncertainty, growth impact, debt burden, valuation risk, and governance concerns. Six reasons. Zero counteroffers. Cohen got a door slammed shut with a letter that read like a legal filing. The bitcoin question is what comes next.
