I want to start by saying two things:
1) There are no true investors who own GameStop shares now and;
2) Bitcoin isn’t an investment. It is a speculative instrument at best and most closely resembles a method of gambling.
Let’s start with point #1: An investor buys a stock with a reasonable expectation of making money. A stock represents an ownership stake in a company and, as a part owner of the company, the investor would be entitled to a proportionate share of any company profits. GameStop has issued 69,746,960 shares. If you own one share you are entitled to 1/ 69,746,960th of the profits; that was $1.52 in 2018.
GameStop stopped paying dividends in March 2019. No profits to investors in about 2 years. At the time of the last dividend payment the stock was selling in the $12 - $14 range.
In the last fiscal year GameStop profits were in fact losses; -$4.76/share. The company lost close to $332,000,000 or about half of what the company was worth at the beginning of the year. Another year like last and the company will be a net value of Zero. Worthless. And Zero return to investors.
Any reasonable investor, looking at the possible loss of his investment in a failing business, would have taken the money and run before the end of January 2021 when speculators/gamblers were paying far beyond what an investor would reasonably expect. By the end of January all of the true investors would have sold their shares to people who are speculators and gamblers.
There is nothing wrong with speculating or gambling as long as you know that you’re doing it.
And that brings me to point #2, Bitcoin: I hear people referring to Bitcoin as an investment. It absolutely is not. Bitcoin is not based on any underlying asset or (potentially) profit-making endeavor. Of itself, it will never turn a profit, Bitcoin produces no saleable goods or services it will never pay a dividend. Placing money in Bitcoin pays no interest. The only thing you can reasonably do with Bitcoin is hope to sell it for more than you paid. In this last case it seems to be very like the present treatment of GameStop shares.
Here’s the difference. There was never anything behind Bitcoin, it was never intended to be an investment. Bitcoin is traded on unregulated exchanges and openly manipulated in ways that would be illegal on the regulated stock exchanges. Meanwhile, GameStop shares are attached to a business and traded in regulated financial markets.
Bitcoin will be traded as long as people want to trade it and as long as any unregulated cripto exchange exists, but not GameStop.
There is a slim chance that GameStop may stop the bleeding and survive in some smaller form or that some other corporation might see some value in the carcass of GameStop and suggest a buyout, offering a few cents or a dollar per share. This would require a vote from the shareholders so is unlikely to go through. If GameStop runs out of money and goes into receivership the shares will cease to trade on the financial markets and anyone left holding them will lose all they paid.
After gambling hundreds or thousands of dollars the owners won’t even have any Hockey Cards or Beanie Babies to look at.
