On July 11, 2021, GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME), a gaming merchandise retailer, announced that it has launched its non-fungible token marketplace to allow gamers, collectors, creators, and other community members to buy, sell, or trade NFTs. The GameStop NFT marketplace is a non-custodial, Ethereum Layer 2-based marketplace that lets the involved parties truly own their digital investments, which are secured and represented on the blockchain.
The opening week sales of the NFT marketplace accounted for investments of over 5,000 ETH amounting to about $7.2 billion since its launch. The figure is more than double of Coinbase’s all-time NFT sales volume. The crypto sector behemoth fell short in front of a relatively new entrant which is surely notable and surprising. After this news broke, the GME stock was in the green and closed at $151.70 (up by 3.45%) on Tuesday.
The official press release mentioned that the marketplace, which is accessible through this link, “allows parties to connect to their own digital asset wallets such as the recently launched GameStop Wallet. Over time, the marketplace will expand functionality to encompass additional categories such as Web3 gaming, more creators and other Ethereum environments.”
Maybe the approach toward Ethereum and the support from the gaming community was one of the prime reasons for the success of GameStop NFT. On the other hand, Coinbase NFT just managed to get 1,913 ETH investments which accounted for $2.8 million worth of volume. Also, this major crypto exchange was under scrutiny after failure in the marketplace and lay off of over 1,000 employees, which was an added blow to the organization.
Moreover, another highlight is that GME is charging about 2.25% trading fees whereas Coinbase still offers a zero-fee trading service. Therefore, the loyal community of the company should definitely be attributed to this achievement. However, GameStop NFT sales still remain far behind the leading NFT platform, OpenSea, which recorded a sales volume of ETH valued at about $120 million.
