Anyone who has been following cryptocurrency markets knows that the market is in a slump right now. Values of even the most popular currencies such as BTC, ETH, XRP, and SOL have all seen their values dip with some lesser-known tokens losing up to 90% of their value. However, today, GameStop has announced they are entering the blockchain market and are jumping to invest in NFTs.
? Meet the new kid on the blockchain #GameStopNFT pic.twitter.com/BIrLrmYnMp
— GameStopNFT (@GameStopNFT) May 19, 2022
GameStop announced on Twitter using a new handle GameStopNFT with the same hashtag stating “what the internet did for communication, blockchains do for value” indicating their belief in the value it presents for users and players.
GameStop has a long history as a video game and consumer electronics retailer and is arguably one of the largest brick-and-mortar stores for games in the United States. The company was popularly on the news last year when the prices of their stocks skyrocketed from $20 to a peak of $483 per stock due to users on Reddit banding together to buy stocks and artificially raise prices.
The market itself is definitely in a slump as even interest in crypto and blockchain games has dwindled a bit with daily active users dipping even for the most popular blockchain game, Axie Infinity. Of course, the company is still seeing almost a million active users per day which is still a lot.
It is unclear what the plans of GameStop are at this point, a company that has largely been operating as a meme on the internet. This can be a bid perhaps to access an emerging market as GameStop has for the most part been left behind with most gamers moving towards digital platforms for their gaming needs. GameStop for the most part has not adapted to online scalability and has relied even for the better part of this year on their brick and mortar stores to keep them afloat.
This can also be a bid for GameStop to be relevant as stock prices have not performed as well compared to last year’s debacle. By going to the NFT space, they may want to show investors that they are serious about building the company moving forward.