EBay Rejects GameStops $55.5B Bid, North Korea Drains $2.06B, Kraken-Franklin Templeton Forge Tokenization Deal
EBay has formally rebuffed a $55.5 billion unsolicited acquisition proposal from GameStop, with board chairman Paul Pressler describing the half-stock, half-cash offer as “neither credible nor attractive” in a letter to GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen. The marketplace operator cited concerns over financing certainty, leverage exposure and operational risk in a combined entity. EBays shares trade near $107.71, up roughly 24% year-to-date and 55% over the trailing twelve months, while GameStop has declined about 18% across the same period. Cohen had publicly argued eBay could be repositioned into a business worth “hundreds of billions,” but the board reaffirmed confidence in its standalone strategy and capital return plan. State-sponsored crypto theft has reached unprecedented scale, with North Korea-linked groups responsible for roughly 60% of all losses recorded in 2025, equating to about $2.06 billion out of an estimated $3.4 billion total. Analysts attribute 79 of 656 documented incidents to DPRK operators, who have collectively extracted $6.75 billion across 263 events since 2016. The February 2025 Bybit exploit alone accounted for $1.5 billion, with 86% of the stolen Ether converted into Bitcoin within a month using mixers, cross-chain bridges and over-the-counter desks. Researchers describe the operation as an industrialized state revenue stream rather than