GameStop is getting out of the NFT enterprise.
A few yr and a half after launching its NFT market, publicly-traded online game retailer GameStop is saying goodbye to its platform, which helps gaming NFTs and different collectibles throughout Immutable X and Loopring, each Ethereum scaling networks.
“GameStop has determined to wind down our NFT market because of the persevering with regulatory uncertainty of the crypto area,” a message on {the marketplace}’s web site reads, including that the platform will not be working as of February 2 this yr. As a result of the NFTs had been minted on blockchains, nonetheless, they are often accessed elsewhere and acquired and bought by way of different marketplaces.
Roughly 4 months in the past, GameStop introduced it was killing its NFT wallet for a lot the identical purpose. GameStop additionally advised merchants that information by way of the identical technique: a pop-up message on its market’s web site. It’s unclear why GameStop didn’t shut down each merchandise on the identical time, as a substitute selecting to stagger its departure from crypto.
GameStop first signaled plans to interact with NFTs in 2021, after which in January 2022, it hired a 20-person team to supervise the gaming NFT market. The long-running retailer introduced its collaboration with Immutable a couple of month later, stating that it will use Immutable X’s blockchain and established a $100 million fund in Immutable’s IMX token with the crypto agency. A day later, GameStop cashed out a big chunk of the IMX tokens it had simply obtained, dumping $47 million value onto the market.
By July 2022, GameStop had laid off an undisclosed variety of workers—however launched its NFT marketplace to the general public. Months later, it lastly added Immutable X gaming NFTs to its market—however that got here months after GameStop fired its CEO who oversaw the retailer’s crypto push.
The #GameStop NFT Marketplace is winding down
We want to thank @GameStop for selecting Loopring L2 as an integration companion. It was a pleasure working with the workforce there
Creators: the longer term would not cease right here. Loopring L2 has change into a house for superb NFT artists,… pic.twitter.com/B6H57kUDBg
— Loopring💙 (@loopringorg) January 12, 2024
A seek for GameStop NFT market information exhibits that analytics platform DappRadar has already eliminated it from its record. It was initially added in September 2022. Notably, the GameStop NFT Twitter account hasn’t tweeted about its shutdown—and hasn’t tweeted in any respect since September 2023.
GameStop didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s request for remark.
Edited by Andrew Hayward