GameStop has given up on NFTs.
Less than three years after it first signaled its interest in NFTs, GameStop is. Draining the NFT market place. In the year The game retailer, which started as a US-based brick-and-mortar operation in 1984, has recently struggled to maintain a profitable business. GameStop was profitable for the first time in years. By the end of 2022But this followed company-wide layoffs and corporate exits. Some European countries.
Check out GameStop's rise and fall NFT Plans.
April 2021: GameStop is looking for a Blockchain Analyst
By April 2021, a GameStop job listing A blockchain security analyst has suggested that the retailer has plans for an NFT push. A fintech recruiter said. Decrypt At that time, GameStop may be planning to launch something “serious” in the crypto space due to its job listing security focus.
May 2021: GameStop launches Secret Site
In May 2021, GameStop shared a small amount. landing page It continues to hire staff for its blockchain project. At the time, it was unclear whether the retailer would launch an NFT inventory, token, marketplace or something else.
This landing page contains a number of hints and easter eggs, however, such as the GameStop Ethereum link. Smart contract Received from Immutable's NFT. The gods are not bound Card game. The teaser website also had an “Infinite Runner” browser game hidden in it.
January 2022: Blockchain Dividend Revealed
In January 2022, GameStop established its blockchain department Employs 20 employees. To work on upcoming crypto plans at that time. GameStop stock rose 31% after the news broke.
February 2022: Permanent contract + $100 million in funding
GameStop announced 100 million dollar relief fund With the crypto startup Immutable In the year In February 2022, it will pay developers who want to use Immutable's IMX token. An unchanging X Release their blockchain and NFTs at GameStop.
This news also confirmed that GameStop will use the Immutable X blockchain for its upcoming NFT marketplace (GameStop's marketplace will also use turn onAnother Ethereum Measurement network).
The retailer has been very quiet about its blockchain plans up until this point.
February 2022: GameStop sells $47 million worth of IMX
Incredibly, GameStop sold off IMX 23% in 24 hours. The price is 47 million dollars IMX tokens. While the token payment is part of a pre-arranged deal, outsiders like GameStop can immediately cash it in and profit from its crypto partnerships – before a single crypto product is even launched.
May 2022: Launch of GameStop NFT Twitter and wallet
GameStop spin one GameStop NFT Twitter account He is determined to promote his NFT plans.
GameStop's NFT label says, “What the internet did for connectivity, blockchains do for value.” He wrote By May 2022 “Public, permissionless, trustless value layers [give] Power to the players,” he added, recognizing the potential benefits of crypto.
But this time NFT sale It had reached a plateau.
GameStop has also launched a browser extension. crypto and NFT wallet In May 2022, and tweeted about many different wallets Patch updates throughout the year.
July 2022: Market launch—and layoffs
In July 2022, GameStop It included the CFO After a month of heavy losses, they fired their employees. After a few days, he started the expected work NFT marketplace In beta, it requires NFT creators Submit applications To be approved for listing or to host Mint on the platform.
GameStop's NFT marketplace doesn't provide any data transparency beyond statistics for the top 50 most traded sets. The market is over 3,100 Ethereum worth of NFTs traded In its first two days of operation, that was about $3.5 million at the time. While this isn't much compared to larger NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, GameStop has surpassed it Coinbase's NFT marketplace Effort
The game retailer It continues to encourage developers In this period to apply for a 100 million dollar aid program.
October 2022: GameStop finally adds gaming NFTs
Three months after NFT launched its marketplace, GameStop was finally added. Immutable X game NFTs to the stage. This means that NFT items or assets 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 offered profile picture-style NFTs and art NFTs for sale on the platform.
In the year In November 2022, GameStop expanded its crypto and NFT wallet by releasing a version for iOS mobile devices through the Apple App Store, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Filing.
March 2023: SEC filing shows minimal impact
“Our new digital assets products and services may not achieve our desired results and may expose us to new risks,” GameStop wrote. SEC filing A risk assessment of the blockchain push in March 2023.
“If we are unable to successfully implement and operate these digital assets initiatives, we may incur unexpected costs and losses, and we may experience other adverse effects, such as adverse effects,” the company continued.
GameStop also stated that blockchain offerings subject the company to risks “similar to those associated with any new product offering, including but not limited to our ability to accurately predict market demand and acceptance, developer and buyer acceptance, technical issues with the operation of the products, and legal and regulatory risks.” .
June 2023: GameStop fires CEO
Are you sure –GameStop fired the CEO Within a year of launching the NFT Marketplace, he led the company's push into blockchain and NFTs.
August 2023: GameStop axes crypto wallet
In August 2023, GameStop quietly shared that it was. Disconnect the crypto wallet In November, a pop-up message appeared on the NFT marketplace's website due to “uncertainty in crypto space regulation.”
Around this time, high-profile crypto lawsuits with the SEC continued against such exchanges. Coinbase And Binance.
September 2023: NFT's Twitter account goes silent.
GameStop's NFT-focused Twitter account—which promotes artists and collectibles approved for the NFT marketplace—has stopped posting on its main Twitter feed. The account continued to respond sporadically to some users until December 2023.
It's unclear whether the staff who managed the account were laid off, reassigned or simply told to stop posting.Jim” and so on on the label.
November 2023: GameStop wallet discontinued
GameStop has given its crypto wallet users three months to withdraw their assets from the product before it shuts down in November. The wallet is initially released for both Chrome browsers and iOS.
December 2023: Minimum income from NFTs
In December, GameStop's Quarterly income report The company said it earned $2.8 million by selling digital assets—the term it uses to refer to NFTs—from January to late October 2023. This is a far cry from the $77.4 million in digital asset sales seen during the same period in 2022. .
Overall, GameStop posted a $56.4 million loss over the same period, according to the report.
January 2024: The GameStop NFT Marketplace is slated to close.
In January, GameStop made its intentions clear: it would become the NFT marketplace. Closing. Again, however, the publicly traded company has remained largely silent on its plans to shut down its NFT platform, opting again to break the news with a small pop-up message on the NFT website.
GameStop's crypto push comes as the company struggles to turn a profit. And if the company's earnings reports are any indication, NFTs haven't exactly solved that problem.
Edited by Andrew Hayward.
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