Over $ 3M has been spent on the GameStops NFT Marketplace

GameStop’s experiment with NFTs has got off to a surprisingly good start. Since the NFT marketplace was launched on Monday, over $ 3.5 million has been spent on the platform’s top 50 NFT collections. With a royalty rate of 2.25% per sale, GameStop’s marketplace has generated around $ 67,500 in revenue for the company.

It’s not game changing money, but is more than many expected. GameStop’s NFT marketplace launch took place in the middle of the crypto winter, who have seen interest in NFTs fall along with the refueling value of bitcoin and ether. Ether, with which most NFTs are purchased, has declined by almost 70% since the new year began. Many of GameStop’s customers categorically reject NFTs, too trial from Ubisoft and Square Enix to integrate crypto and NFTs into games despised by players galore.

GameStop hopes to compete with OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace. Around $ 17 billion has been spent on Ethereum-based NFTs in the OpenSea market this year, according to Dune analytics. OpenSea takes 2.5% of each NFT sold on the platform, which means that revenues will be around 425 million dollars in the last 7 months.

GameStop’s NFT marketplace has had a stronger start than the cryptocurrency exchange CoinBase. After many delays and much anticipation, CoinBase launched its NFT marketplace on April 20 – and has seen around $ 3 million in volume since, according to Dune Analytics. The largest NFT collection on GameStop’s NFT marketplace is MetaBoy, which features Game Boy-themed pixel art. Over $ 1 million has been spent on MetaBoy NFTs alone.

GameStop’s business has struggled over the past decade as people increasingly buy games online, a trend that is pronounced enough for Sony to offer a PlayStation 5 digital only
. With a changing customer base, the company now sees the lucrative NFT market, which was last year worth $ 25 billion. In addition to its newly launched marketplace, GameStop also offers its own cryptowallet.

NFTs are tokens from a blockchain that certifies ownership of a digital asset; they are the digital equivalent of the title deed to a property. Critics say that NFTs are a temporary mania that will eventually disappear into obscurity when the bubble bursts well and truly, while proponents claim that NFTs will change the internet economy forever.

Unfortunately for GameStop, the recent cryptocurrency has sparked enthusiasm for everything to do with blockchain. NFT sales on OpenSea fell from $ 2.5 billion in May to $ 696 million in June. With ether at around $ 1,000, there is enough marketing activity for an established company like OpenSea to keep up with, but it will be far more challenging for a newcomer like GameStop to etch a place for itself in the market.

GameStop’s marketplace is Ethereum-based, which means it does not sell NFTs built on blockchains such as Solana, and currently only offers artwork. GameStop is apparently focusing on its existing customer base to engage in NFT trading, as the marketplace does not currently offer blue chip collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Doodles or Cool Cats – collections that are popular among NFT traders, but unaffordable for most people.

Eventually, the marketplace will expand to include “Web3 games“, which refers to games that use NFTs and cryptocurrencies. For this purpose, GameStop has partnered with Immutable, a company that specializes in blockchain games. The two have offered a $ 100 million grant to Web3 developers who joins the platform.

It comes at a troubled time for GameStop. Last week, the company fired its CFO due to broader layoffs in the organization. “Change will be constant as we develop our trading business and launch new products through our blockchain team,” GameStop CEO Matt Furlong said in an email to employees, according to Kotaku. In the company’s latest quarterly report, at the end of April, it revealed a net loss of $ 157 million.