Despite Crypto Storm, GameStop Launches New NFT Market

GameStop launches new NFT products in the midst of crypto winter. (photo: twitter @gamestop)

JAKARTA -GameStop seems to be ignoring the fact that it's currently a "crypto winter". Instead they are moving forward with the launch of their own NFT marketplace, which is now open in what the company calls a "public beta."

Currently, you can use the platform to buy, sell and create NFTs. There are more than 200 collections that you can peruse and more than 53,000 NFT listed on the market. This appears to be fairly standard NFT fare - in just a few minutes of perusing, we've for example seen some odd cat and monkey themed collections.

Unsurprisingly, you can connect the newly launched GameStop Wallet to manage your digital assets, although you can also use options like WalletConnect and MetaMask. But not just anyone can make NFT on this platform. Because interested content creators must register.

GameStop has bigger plans for the market. In a press release, they said they had plans to "expand the functionality" to areas such as Web3 gaming.

On the homepage of the NFT marketplace, GameStop has already teased that support for Immutable X, the platform built on Ethereum used by several NFT games, is coming soon. GameStop and Immutable X have also launched a grant program worth US$100 million (Rp1.49 trillion).

The game retailer first announced in February that it was planning to open its own NFT marketplace, but over the past few weeks, NFT sales have been dropping amid a bigger downturn in the crypto market as a whole.

Crypto companies like Coinbase, BlockFi, and Crypto.com have had to lay off staff in an attempt to weather the crypto winter storm. But GameStop is going ahead with its plans, despite its own problems.

GameStop opened the NFT marketplace just days after laying off staff and firing its CFO, and crypto endeavors look as though they are an important part of the company's future. In a memo to employees about the layoffs, which The Verge cited, CEO Matt Furlong mentioned blockchain group GameStop in the first sentence.