The tech world is ever-evolving. New tangents are drawn on a daily basis and projects in this space are subjected to the constant battle of maintaining their relevance over time. In most cases, it almost becomes inevitable to not follow the ongoing trends. Now as far as the crypto and blockchain space is concerned, NFTs are clearly the most buzzing thing. Corporations from different sectors have been trying and testing its waters of late.
In what is the latest news, Texas-based gaming corporation GameStop is all set to jump onto the NFT bandwagon. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, the company is forming a division to develop a marketplace for NFTs. It additionally intends to get into partnerships with other crypto firms in the process.
GameStop, as such, has been working on an NFT marketplace for quite some time now. Things came to the limelight last year in October when it listed several job openings for Web 3.0 and NFT-experienced software engineers and product marketers.
Highlighting the latest development, WSJ’s report noted,
“The retailer has hired more than 20 people to run the unit, which is building an online hub for buying, selling and trading NFTs of virtual videogame goods such as avatar outfits and weapons, according to the people.“
The said NFT marketplace would likely launch later this year and the company is said to be close to sealing partnership deals with crypto companies that would share tech and co-invest in the development of blockchain and NFT games.
Here it is crucial to note that the gaming giant corporation restructured its leadership team and board of directors last year. It appointed activist investor Ryan Cohen as Chairman and according to many from the community, his appointment has been one of the main reasons for GameStop to become even more tech-focussed.
Ripple effect
Earlier last year GME prices astronomically surged after Reddit stock traders began buying them. The stock opened in January last year around $19 and managed to reach $483 by the end of the same month.
A host of federal agency probes and congressional hearings were held as a result of the unprecedented volatility. Post that, dumpings happened and the broader market too subjected itself to a downtrend. In effect, the stock’s price had been trading in and around the $200 mark for the remaining part of the year.
The kickstart to this year was, however, not quite impressive. The 5 January dump made things even more choppy for GME, as it re-visited the $120 range.
However, post-WSJ’s revelation, GME’s stock price managed to rise to $175 in the after-hours trading (AHT), despite closing at around $131 on Thursday. AHT is usually quite volatile because of the lack of liquidity in the markets but impacts the price of stocks in similar ways to regular trading.
Thus, it’d be interesting to see whether or not the stock price carries forward the bullish momentum during the trading hours on Friday. More so, because Wall Street Journal’s article was typically characterized by details from unnamed sources and also lacked GameStop’s direct confirmation.
