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GameStop Corp. is forging ahead with efforts to reduce its physical footprint in the first weeks of 2026. The video game retailer is closing stores in numerous states this month, according to local media reports, and emails and store signage shared by customers on social media, part of its ongoing effort to reduce costs and adapt to changes in shopping habits. The closures are not completely unexpected. In its third-quarter earnings report on December 9, GameStop said it had already closed 590 stores in the United States during the previous fiscal year as part of a “store portfolio optimization review.” In a December filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the retailer reiterated its plan to shutter a “significant number of additional stores” during its 2025 fiscal year. GameStop’s fiscal year ends on January 31, 2026. GameStop reported net income of $77 million on revenue of $821 million for the third quarter, but the latter figure was below a consensus estimate cited by Reuters. The retailer’s shares have sagged since their heyday at the center of the 2021 meme stock frenzy, when retail traders bought shares en masse, causing losses for short sellers who had bet against the stock. Over the last 12 months, GameStop’s stock (NYSE: GME) has declined roughly 36%. Which GameStop stores are closing in 2026? The retailer has not provided a list of stores that are expected to close and did not respond to Fast Company‘s requests for additional details. We’ll update this story as we learn more. GameStop customers have been sharing emailsostensibly from individual locationsand signage on some stores that indicates imminent closures. The communications have included various closure dates throughout this week and next. Local media outlets have also reported on individual store closings, in locations ranging from Topsham, Maine; to Ann Arbor, Michigan; to Topeka, Kansas, and beyond. At the beginning of last year, GameStop reported 2,325 stores in the United States. This story is developing . . .
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E-Commerce
Popular cryptocurrency XRP had a lackluster 2025, starting the year at around $2.32 per token while finishing at around the $1.84 mark. But in the past 24 hours, the price of XRP has jumped more than 11% to $2.37 per coina price not seen since the early part of November. So whats driving the rise? Here are the two strongest factors. Spot ETF inflows are rising XRP is the native token of the XRP Ledger from Ripple Labs. Like some other well-known cryptocurrencies, XRP tokens are available to purchase directly or through exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Traditional retail investors tend to prefer to invest in the token through ETFs for convenience and tax advantages. And recently, the money being put into spot XRP ETFs is rising. (Spot means that the ETF holds the asset directly.) As noted by CoinDesk, spot XRP ETF inflows reached $48 million on Monday alone. An inflow refers to additional money being put into an ETF. This money comes from investors, and the ETF fund managers then use it to buy more of the asset. Increasing spot ETF inflows suggest that investors have a growing appetite for the assetin this case, XRP. Mondays inflow volume, combined with the inflows of spot XRP ETFs over the past two months, means total inflows have now exceeded $1 billion during that timeframe, indicating that investors are bullish on the crypto. Exchange availability is dropping At the same time that spot XRP inflows are rising, the availability of XRP on traditional cryptocurrency exchanges, where crypto investors can buy and sell the coin directly, is falling. CoinDesk says XRP availability on crypto exchanges has dropped to multi-year lows. What this means is fewer crypto investors are moving their money to exchanges, where a coin must be if it is to be sold, and instead keeping XRP in their personal wallets. Investors typically hold an asset when they believe its value will increase, or there will be more demand for the asset in the future. And by keeping XRP in their wallets and off exchanges, there are fewer tokens available to buy, which increases demand. When demand increases, prices of an asset tend to rise. Cryptocurrencies are seeing a broader rebound this week XRPs spot ETF inflow growth and reduced exchange availability likely arent the only two factors behind the tokens 11% surge these past 24 hours. The first week of 2026 has seen a crypto rally of sorts since the year began, with many major tokens, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, up over the past five days. During that time, Bitcoin has risen nearly 6%, and Ethereum is up nearly 8%. XRP is up nearly 26% during the same timeframe, its growth likely helped by broader crypto market optimism. This comes after many tokens struggled to gain ground in December. Yet despite XRPs recent growth, the coin is still down about 2% over the past 12 months. It is also down significantly from its all-time high of over $3.65 last July. With 2026 just beginning, it remains to be seen whether the new year will bring a repeat of 2025s calendar-year lackluster performance or if XRP will continue moving toward its previous all-time highs.
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E-Commerce
A new year, a new quantum computing breakthrough: D-Wave, one of the quantum industrys rising stars, announced an industry-first breakthrough on Tuesday as it works to make quantum computing commercially viable. The company says it has demonstrated scalable, on-chip cryogenic control for gate-model qubits, claiming it is the first in the industry to do so, and that the breakthrough helps overcome a long-standing obstacle to building commercially viable and scalable gate-model quantum computers. The issue, as Trevor Lanting, D-Waves chief development officer, tells Fast Company, is that adding qubits to a quantum system requires additional resources, such as control lines. That involves more space, material, and an overall increase in complexity for the entire system. But D-Wave has found a way to reduce that complexity, opening the door for scalability. You can think of it as a chip in your phone or laptop, Lanting says. The CPU has transistors in it, and there are billions in a modern CPU or logic chip, but only a small number of connections that go from the motherboard and get the information on and off the chip. You dont have individual wires going to each transistor; you need to multiplex that control. That, in a corollary to classical computing, is what D-Wave is claiming to have demonstrated. Again, this means that additional quantum computing power can be controlled with fewer resources, or scalable control, as Lanting puts it. For D-Wave, its the latest major announcement among several over the past year, as the company continues to push the envelope in the burgeoning quantum computing field. Last March, the company claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy after it was able to successfully simulate the properties of magnetic materials using its Advantage2 annealing quantum computer. In October, it struck a $12 million deal to bring its computers to Europe. All of that has sent D-Waves stock to the moon. Over the past year, shares have increased by more than 200%. Two years ago, shares were trading for less than $1; as of January 5, they were trading at nearly $31. Lanting, who has been with the company for nearly two decades, says its been a long time coming. Weve been intensively investing in this technology for a decade, and now weve been able to harness it for a gate-model program. This was the step we needed to get the control technology working, he says, adding, Were very excited. This really is a differentiating technology for D-Wave. [And] our customers are excited because they get to work on cutting-edge hardware.”
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E-Commerce
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