GameStop gave up on NFTs.
Less than three years after GameStop first hinted at interest in NFTs Abandon the NFT market. The game retailer, which started as a brick-and-mortar store in the United States in 1984, has recently struggled to maintain a profitable business. GameStop became profitable for the first time in years. Late 2022However, this follows company-wide layoffs and company exits. some european countries.
Let’s take a look at the rise and fall of GameStop. NFT plan.
April 2021: GameStop seeks Blockchain Analyst.
April 2021, GameStop Careers A blockchain security analyst suggested that the retailer is planning an NFT push. said the fintech recruiter. decryption At the time, GameStop was likely planning to launch something “serious” in the cryptocurrency space due to the security focus of its job listings.
May 2021: GameStop launches mysterious site.
In May 2021, GameStop was shared via Minimalist. landing page The point is that we are continuing to hire staff for our blockchain project. At the time, it was unclear whether the retailer would launch an NFT collection, a token, a marketplace, or something entirely different.
However, this landing page contains several hints and Easter eggs, such as a link to GameStop Ethereum. smart contract I received an NFT from Immutable’s. Free from the chains of the gods card game. There was also an “Endless Runner” browser game hidden in the teaser site.
January 2022: Blockchain division unveiled
By January 2022, GameStop will establish a blockchain division and Employed 20 employees To proceed with our upcoming cryptocurrency plans. GameStop’s stock price soared 31% after the news broke.
February 2022: Immutable Transactions + $100M Fund
GameStop announced. $100 million in grants With cryptocurrency startups immutability In February 2022, Immutable’s IMX tokens will be paid out to developers who want to use them. immutable Create a blockchain and release NFTs through GameStop.
The news also confirmed that GameStop would be using the Immutable X blockchain for its NFT marketplace at the time (GameStop’s marketplace also uses it). loop ringAnother Ethereum network expansion).
The retailer has been very quiet about its blockchain plans so far.
February 2022: GameStop sells $47 million worth of IMX.
In a somewhat awkward situation, GameStop sold off at a huge price, sending the price of IMX plummeting 23% in 24 hours. Worth $47 million IMX token. Although the token payment was part of a pre-agreed transaction, outsiders could see it as an attempt by GameStop to immediately cash in and profit from the cryptocurrency partnership before it even launched a single cryptocurrency product.
May 2022: GameStop NFT Twitter and Wallet Launch
GameStop is GameStop NFT Twitter account We are dedicated to promoting NFT initiatives.
GameStop’s NFT account “What the internet did for communication, blockchain does for value.” wrote May 2022. “A public, permissionless, and trustworthy neutral value layer empowers players,” he added, defending the potential benefits of cryptocurrencies.
But at this time, NFT sales We have reached a plateau.
GameStop also released a browser extension. Cryptocurrency and NFT wallets In May 2022, I tweeted about various wallets. patch update All year round.
July 2022: Marketplace Launch and Layoffs
July 2022, GameStop CFO abandoned It laid off staff across the business after a month of reporting significant losses.. A few days later, it was released as expected. NFT Marketplace The beta version requires NFT creators to: Submit application Receive approval to list or host Mint on the platform.
GameStop’s NFT marketplace also offers no data transparency beyond statistics on the top 50 most traded collections. the market saw 3,100 Ethereum worth of NFTs were traded. Within its first two days of release, it grossed around $3.5 million at the time. This isn’t much compared to the largest NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, but GameStop has surpassed it. Coinbase’s NFT Marketplace effort.
game retailer Continuing to encourage developers During this period, we are applying for a $100 million grant program.
October 2022: GameStop finally adds gaming NFTs.
Three months after launching its NFT marketplace, GameStop has finally added it. Immutable X Gaming NFT on the platform. This means that NFT items or assets from games like Gods Unchained, Illuvium, and Guild of Guardians can be bought and sold through GameStop’s NFT marketplace. Up until this point, the retailer had only sold profile photo-style NFTs and art NFTs on its platform.
According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), GameStop has further strengthened its cryptocurrency and NFT wallet push by launching a version for iOS mobile devices through the Apple App Store in November 2022. filing.
March 2023: Minimal impact, according to SEC filing
“Our new digital asset products and services may not achieve desired results and may expose us to new risks,” GameStop wrote. SEC filing A risk assessment of blockchain push was conducted in March 2023.
“If we are unable to successfully implement and operate these digital asset initiatives, we may incur unexpected costs and losses and may face other negative consequences, such as negative reputational effects,” the company continued.
GameStop also stated that its blockchain products expose the company to risks similar to those associated with any new product offering, including, but not limited to, the ability to accurately predict market demand and acceptance, creator and buyer acceptance, and technical issues related to operations. It was revealed. “Legal and regulatory risks of the product,” according to the filing.
June 2023: GameStop fires CEO
Uh oh-GameStop fires its CEO This led to the company’s foray into blockchain and NFTs within a year of launching its NFT marketplace.
August 2023: GameStop is centered around a cryptocurrency wallet.
In August 2023, GameStop quietly shared this. Cryptocurrency Wallet Disruption In November, a pop-up message on the NFT marketplace website said due to “regulatory uncertainty in the cryptocurrency space.”
Around this time, high-profile cryptocurrency lawsuits with the SEC were still ongoing with exchanges including: coinbase and Binance.
September 2023: NFT Twitter accounts go quiet.
GameStop’s NFT-focused Twitter account, which promotes approved artists and collections on the NFT marketplace, stopped posting to its main Twitter feed. However, the account continued to reply sporadically to some users until December 2023.
It’s unclear whether the employee responsible for the account was fired, reassigned to another role, or simply told to stop posting.GM” and other accounts.
November 2023: GameStop wallet discontinued
GameStop gave cryptocurrency wallet users about three months to move their assets from the product before it shuts down in November. The wallet was initially released for the Chrome browser and iOS.
December 2023: Minimum revenue from NFTs
In December, GameStop’s Quarterly Earnings Report The company said it earned $2.8 million selling digital assets (the term it uses to refer to NFTs) between January and the end of October 2023. This is a far cry from the $77.4 million in digital asset sales reported during the same period in 2022. .
Overall, GameStop posted a net loss of $56.4 million during the same period, according to the report.
January 2024: GameStop NFT Marketplace closes.
By January, GameStop had made its intentions clear. The NFT market is as follows: Closed. However, the publicly traded company has once again remained silent about its plans to shut down its NFT platform, opting to deliver the news again through a small pop-up message on the NFT website.
GameStop’s cryptocurrency push comes at a time when the company is struggling to generate revenue. And if the company’s earnings report is any indication, NFTs haven’t exactly solved that problem.
Editor: Andrew Hayward
