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GameStop, the American electronic game retailer that once stirred up an epic battle against short-sellers by retail investors, identified the NFT opportunity and announced a collaboration with the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution Immutable X in February 2022 to jointly develop an NFT trading platform. The marketplace officially went live on Halloween 2022.
Within the first two days of its launch, GameStop's NFT marketplace achieved a trading volume of approximately $3.5 million, surpassing Coinbase NFT marketplace's historical trading volume by nearly twice at that time. However, as the NFT craze subsided, the marketplace gradually dwindled amid competition from other NFT trading platforms.
After being online for only a year and a half, GameStop recently issued a notice on its official website, announcing the closure of the NFT marketplace on February 2nd. The decision was attributed to the ongoing regulatory uncertainties in the cryptocurrency domain. Starting from February 2, 2024, customers will no longer be able to buy, sell, or create NFTs on the platform. The announcement assured users that their NFTs would remain on the blockchain and could be accessed and sold through other platforms.
The Block reported that this decision was not likely to surprise observers since GameStop's NFT marketplace had not shown significant NFT trading volume, and its official X platform account had been inactive since September of the previous year. Nonetheless, this move signifies a significant shift in GameStop's strategy.
Gradual termination of cryptocurrency operations
Prior to this, GameStop had initiated the gradual termination of its cryptocurrency operations, including announcing in August of the previous year that it would cease operating the Web3 wallet. Starting from November of the same year, the company removed its iOS and Chrome extension wallet features, citing "regulatory uncertainties" as the reason.
In December 2022, GameStop released its third-quarter financial report for 2022, showing a net loss of $94.7 million for the quarter. Following this, GameStop stated that it would abandon its focus on cryptocurrencies and proceed with layoffs in its digital asset division.
GameStop's CEO, Matt Furlong, mentioned at that time that while the company remained optimistic about cryptocurrencies, he wanted to avoid putting investor funds at risk: "Although we still believe there is long-term potential in the world of gaming and digital assets, we are not now, nor will we in the future, risk a significant amount of shareholder capital in this space." |
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Post time 23-1-2024 20:43:32