GameStop Ryan Cohen’s vision is to create an ‘ultimate destination’: new NFT partner
GameStop Chairman Ryan Cohen — aka leader of the meme stock army (apologies to AMC CEO Adam Aron) — has grand ambitions for the company, says its new NFT marketplace partner.
“The default is gaming,” Immutable X co-founder Robbie Ferguson said on Yahoo Finance Live when asked about Cohen’s vision for GameStop. “The one-stop, ultimate destination in which everyone can come and trade their in-gamed owned items.”
Ferguson’s team will help GameStop achieve that mission.
The pair inked a deal whereby Immutable X — a blockchain platform — will build out GameStop’s NFT marketplace. The marketplace will look to cash in on the surging popularity of NFTs and demand for in-game items among gamers.
It’s supposed to debut later this year.
As part of the deal, the pair has established a $100 million fund in Immutable X’s IMX tokens, which the parties plan to use for grants to creators of NFT content and technology.
Ferguson says the NFT marketplace will be a “core strategy” of GameStop moving forward. The blockchain executive added he had discussions with every level of executive at GameStop in “quite detail.”
“The combination of skilled hires plus a partnership with a layer-2 scaling solution, designed specifically for token-driven video games, is a start to giving the investment community more clarity into what GameStop hopes to become,” said Jefferies analyst Stephanie Wissink.
As Yahoo Finance has reported, the lack of clarity on business strategy from Cohen and his new team at GameStop has hurt the stock.
Shares of GameStop have crashed 33% year-to-date. The former meme high-flyer has seen its stock plunge 67% from its high on June 9.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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