GameStop’s NFT Marketplace Clears $5 Million in 1 Week: What’s Next

GameStop’s NFT Marketplace Crossed Trading volume of 5 million dollars milestone on Monday. At a time when the overall NFT market fell by -60% in Q3 from an already decimated Q2, is this the beginning of a trend?

It turns out there’s a secret ingredient to GameStop’s market success – blockchain games powered by ImmutableX.

What is ImmutableX?

Although ImmutableX (IMX) became popular after TikTok chose it for its Top Moments NFTs, the network already had a good reputation. The Australian team behind the NFT trading card game Gods Unchained moved beyond blockchain games into platform development.

James Ferguson, Robbie Ferguson and Alex Connolly launched ImmutableX in 2018 as a super cheap (almost zero gas fee) and fast protocol to process NFT transactions. As Ethereum’s layer 2 scaling network, ImmutableX can handle the bulk of blockchain assets, such as either ERC-20 (regular crypto tokens) or ERC-721 tokens (NFT).

In short, ImmutableX is focused on making blockchain games accessible to both players and game developers. Because blockchain games revolve around NFTs, as tradable and playable in-game assets, ImmutableX made it convenient and affordable to do so without being drained by ETH gas fees.

GameStop’s partnership with ImmutableX

After announcing its partnership with GameStop in February, the ImmutableX-powered NFT marketplace finally went online on October 31st. This is actually GameStop’s entry into the growing Web3 ecosystem, dominated by blockchain games/metaverse.

Since then, in just a single week, GameStop has traded $5 million worth of volume on IMX. Overall, ImmutableX produced over 52 million NFTs this year, enabling over 8.9 million NFT trades. Although Axie Infinity paved the way for blockchain gaming, here are some of the rising stars available, or coming soon, at GameStop:

• Gods Unchained – Similar in production value to Blizzard’s Hearthstone, this is a fantasy-themed turn-based digital trading card game.
• Illuvium – Still in beta, much is expected from this AAA sci-fi adventure, which monetizes the ILV token. Amid high speculation, once the trailer was released, ILV reached an incredible $1,844 all-time high in December 2021.
• Guild of Guardians – Scheduled for release in H2 2023, this isometric action RPG aims to be Web3’s Diablo.
• Ember Swords – Famously created by experienced game developers from Bright Star Studios, Ember Swords is a social sandbox MMORPG. Just as Yuga Labs released Otherdeed for the upcoming Otherside, Bright released its ES-land NFTs, with a market cap of $1.36 million.
• Bitverse – Also in beta, this 8/16-bit game is actually a collection of games, starting with the most important ones at release: RPG, Battle Royale, and Endless Runner.

Why is GameStop becoming a Web3 company?

With its non-custodial browser wallet, GameStop goes full Web3. The gambit is simple. According to the GlobalData forecast, the metaverse market size should reach $996.42 billion by 2030. Even without taking Web3 games into account, in-game spending by 2025 should reach $74.4 billion.

For players, this represents a unique opportunity that has not existed before. Outside of eSports and Twitch streaming, there was no way to have a steady income directly from gaming. After all, traditional games have their marketplaces locked to accounts.

Even if one were to spend $10,000 on these in-game assets, they remain non-tradeable and valuable only to the account holder. Blockchain gaming turns that economy around, making all in-game assets publicly tradable, from NFTs to native utility and governance tokens. In other words, Web3 games transfer ownership to the players of the game.

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What’s next for GameStop

As the company’s next move, GameStop should partner with FTX exchange. But with a hot war brewing between Binance and FTX, there could be changes in plans. In fact, Binance can only buy FTX outright. Meanwhile, GME stock has remained above negative returns over the past 30 days, at +1.18%.

Year to date, GME stock has lost -32.87% of its value, and now trades at $25.66 per share. This is a -239% decrease from the all-time high of $86.88 in January 2021. Currently, GME open interest (OI) is higher than average, having increased by 2.1% on a daily basis, indicating on a continuation of the meme stock trade. status.

Do you think blockchain games will be too money to be appealing? Let us know in the comments below.

About the author

Tim Fries is the co-founder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate in the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division and is also a co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.