Screenshot: Gamestop/Kotaku
Cast your mind back to July 2022. It was around the time the market for NFTs was crashing and crypto scams were falling apart everywhere you looked. Back then, GameStop declared its intention to get into all that cool Web 3.0 stuff. Well, you'll never believe it, but it didn't work out so well. In an update just posted on its NFT site, the company explains that everything is ceasing.
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It's shocking stuff. Who could have predicted it accurately down to the smallest detail when they vaguely heard about it when it was launched? Well, probably not all of the people who turned a meme into a religion were truly convinced that GameStop's continued failure to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of physical media was evidence of its undeniable success. Pour them one as GameStop declares that “ongoing regulatory uncertainty in the crypto space” means it’s time to give up on the future of JPEG trading.
That's actually the reason. The full “Important Update” is:
GameStop has decided to close our NFT marketplace due to ongoing regulatory uncertainty in the crypto space.
As of February 2, 2024, customers will no longer be able to buy, sell, or create NFTs. Your NFTs reside on the blockchain and remain accessible and sellable across other platforms.
Yes, all those moving shape GIFs you could have invested in will soon no longer be GameStop's problem. Yes, you'll have to buy this two-frame animation of a pixel eyeball for $253.83 elsewhere. The regulation is simply too uncertain for GameStop to handle.
At least things went really well for the year and a half.
Funnily enough, it was also “regulatory uncertainty” that led to GameStop closing its crypto wallets last August.
The company now seems to have completely extricated itself from the crypto nonsense and is probably looking for the next meme idea to latch on to for further meme stock growth.