GameStop has given up on NFTs.
Less than three years after GameStop first hinted at its interest in NFTs, it has dumping its NFT marketplace. The gaming retailer, which started as a US-based brick-and-mortar company in 1984, has struggled lately to maintain a profitable business. GameStop was profitable for the first time in years end of 2022but this followed company-wide layoffs and a corporate exit some European countries.
Here’s a look at the rise (and fall) of GameStop’s NFT plan.
April 2021: GameStop is hiring a blockchain analyst
In April 2021, a GameStop job vacancy as a blockchain security analyst suggested the retailer was planning an NFT push. A fintech recruiter told it Declutter at the time it was likely that GameStop was planning to launch something “serious” in the crypto space due to the security focus of the job posting.
May 2021: GameStop launches mysterious site
In May 2021, GameStop shared via a minimalist landing page that it continued hiring workers for its blockchain project. At the time, it was unclear whether the retailer would launch an NFT collection, a token, a marketplace, or something else entirely.
However, this landing page contained a number of hints and Easter eggs, such as a link to a GameStop Ethereum smart contract who had received an NFT from Immutable’s Gods unleashed card game. The teaser site also featured an ‘endless runner’ browser game.
January 2022: Blockchain division unveiled
In January 2022, GameStop had established its blockchain division and 20 employees hired to work on his then-upcoming crypto plans. GameStop shares rose 31% after the news broke.
February 2022: Unchangeable deal + $100 million fund
GameStop announced it A $100 million grant fund with crypto startup Unchangeable in February 2022, offering payouts of Immutable’s IMX token to developers who use the Immutable blockchain and releasing their NFTs with GameStop.
This news also confirmed that GameStop would be using the Immutable Running ringanother Ethereum scale up network).
The retailer had remained very quiet about its blockchain plans until now.
February 2022: GameStop sells IMX worth $47 million
In a somewhat awkward turn of events, GameStop sent IMX’s price down 23% in 24 hours as it experienced staggering sales figures. Worth $47 million of IMX tokens. While the token payout was part of a pre-arranged deal, outsiders could see this as an attempt by GameStop to immediately cash out and make a profit on its crypto partnerships – before even launching a single crypto product.
May 2022: Launch of GameStop NFT Twitter and wallet
GameStop ran one GameStop NFT Twitter account dedicated to promoting its NFT plans.
“What the internet did for communication, blockchains do for value,” GameStop’s NFT account said wrote in May 2022. “Public, permissionless, credibly neutral layers of value [give] power to the players,” it added, embracing the potential benefits of crypto.
Right now though NFT sales had reached a plateau.
GameStop also launched its browser extension crypto and NFT wallet in May 2022, and tweeted about the many different wallets patch updates throughout the year.
July 2022: Launch of Marketplace – and layoffs
In July 2022, GameStop dumped its CFO and laid off staff across its operations, a month after reporting significant losses. Days later it launched its expected one NFT marketplace in beta, which required NFT makers to do this submit applications for approval to be listed on its platform or to host mints.
GameStop’s NFT marketplace also doesn’t offer any data transparency beyond the metrics for the top 50 most traded collections. The market overlooked it 3,100 Ethereum worth of NFTs traded within the first two days of launch, which amounted to approximately $3.5 million at the time. While this wasn’t much compared to the largest NFT marketplaces like OpenSea, GameStop surpassed it Coinbase’s NFT marketplace attempt.
The games store continued to encourage developers to apply for the $100 million grant program during this period.
October 2022: GameStop finally adds gaming NFTs
Three months after the launch of the NFT marketplace, GameStop was finally added Immutable X-gaming NFTs to his 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. Until now, the retailer had only offered profile photo-style NFTs and art NFTs for sale on its platform.
According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), GameStop promoted its crypto and NFT wallet in November 2022 by releasing a version for iOS mobile devices through Apple’s App Store. submit.
March 2023: SEC filing suggests minimal impact
“Our new digital asset products and services may not achieve the desired results and may expose us to new risks,” GameStop wrote in a SEC filing in March 2023 on its risk assessment of its blockchain push.
“If and to the extent we are unable to successfully implement and exploit these digital asset initiatives, we may incur unexpected costs and losses and experience other adverse consequences, such as negative reputational effects,” it continued company.
GameStop further indicated that its blockchain offering exposed the company to risks “similar to those associated with any new product offering, including, but not limited to, our ability to accurately anticipate market demand and adoption , maker and purchaser acceptance, technical issues with the operations of the products, and legal and regulatory risks,” the filing said.
June 2023: GameStop fires CEO
Oh Oh-GameStop fired its CEO That led to the company’s move into blockchain and NFTs within a year of launching the NFT marketplace.
August 2023: GameStop scraps crypto wallet
In August 2023, GameStop quietly shared that it had shutting down his crypto wallet in November due to the “regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space” via a pop-up message on the NFT marketplace website.
Around this time, high-profile crypto lawsuits with the SEC continued to unfold on exchanges such as Coin base And Binance.
September 2023: NFT Twitter account goes silent
GameStop’s NFT-focused Twitter account, which promoted artists and collections approved for its NFT marketplace, stopped posting to its main Twitter feed. However, the account continued to respond sporadically to some users until December 2023.
It is unclear whether the staff responsible for the account was fired, reassigned to another role, or simply told to stop posting.gm‘ and the like on the bill.
November 2023: GameStop wallet discontinued
GameStop gave crypto wallet users about three months to remove their assets from the product before closing it in November. The wallet was initially released for both Chrome browsers and iOS.
December 2023: Minimum revenue from NFTs
In December GameStop’s quarterly earnings report revealed that the company made $2.8 million from selling digital assets (the term it uses to refer to NFTs) from January to the end of October in 2023. That’s a far cry from the $77.4 million in digital asset sales it reportedly saw in the same period in 2022. .
According to the report, GameStop posted a total net loss of $56.4 million during the same period.
January 2024: GameStop NFT marketplace closes
In January, GameStop had made its intentions clear: the NFT marketplace would be it to block. Once again, however, the publicly traded company remained largely silent about its plans to close the NFT platform, once again choosing to convey the news via a small pop-up message on the NFT website.
GameStop’s crypto push came at a time when the company was struggling 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