Bid $555 billion to acquire eBay! Will GameStop sell Bitcoin to raise funds?

The Wall Street Journal reports that meme stock pioneer GameStop (GME) plans to invest $55.5 billion to acquire eBay (EBAY), a leading e-commerce platform whose scale exceeds its own by several times. This not only highlights GameStop’s ambition to “swallow a whale” but also draws the attention of the crypto community: Will GameStop liquidate its approximately $368 million worth of Bitcoin to fund this historic acquisition?

According to the acquisition offer proposed by GameStop, the company will purchase eBay through a “cash plus stock” deal at a price of $125 per share, representing a premium of about 46% over eBay’s stock price in early February this year. In fact, GameStop has been positioning itself for some time and currently holds about 5% of eBay’s shares.

Where is the funding coming from? Will GameStop sell its Bitcoin?

With such a massive acquisition amount, the source of funds has become the most concerned topic among investors. GameStop stated that it plans to utilize approximately $9.4 billion in “cash and liquid investments,” and has received a commitment from TD Bank for about $20 billion in debt financing. However, this has also raised doubts in the crypto community: Will GameStop sell its Bitcoin to raise funds?

GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen had already forecasted in February that he was targeting a publicly listed consumer company, preparing for a “very, very, very large” acquisition. He even explicitly said that this plan is “more attractive than investing in Bitcoin,” and did not rule out the possibility of selling cryptocurrencies to raise capital.

Notably, last month, GameStop transferred about 4,709 Bitcoin to Coinbase Prime for executing a “hedging call option” strategy, continuing to hold the assets while increasing cash income.

Following this series of operations, GameStop classified this $368 million worth of Bitcoin assets as “accounts receivable,” and combined with approximately $9 billion in cash on hand, its balance sheet shows a total of $9.4 billion in funds, which are expected to be used for this acquisition.

Additionally, Ryan Cohen mentioned that the company has the “ability to issue new shares to complete the deal,” demonstrating flexibility in raising funds through multiple channels. As for whether Bitcoin will ultimately be used, as of the time of writing, GameStop has not responded.