New partnership between Gamestop and FTX

The interaction between the Nasdaq-listed American video game retailer, Gamestop, and the world of cryptocurrencies continues. 

In recent days, the company announced a new partnership with FTX for a collaboration and interaction between the stores and the well-known exchange, which specializes in the derivatives market for cryptocurrency payments.

Gamestop and FTX collaborate for future crypto payments

Immediately after this announcement, Gamestop‘s stock price literally shot up, gaining more than 11%, to $26.48, at a time of great weakness in the stock.

The partnership means that in the stores of the video game retailer based in the US, the FTX payment card will become the preferred payment card for purchases and benefits to be spent in stores and online.

On the other hand, the company’s quarterly results were once again disappointing, and that is why for some time Gamestop has seemed to be turning to digital assets as a possible way out of a business that is now showing some difficulties, not least because of the great development that GameFi and Play-to-Earn games are having. And it is also for this reason that Gamestop is seeking creators for the NFT marketplace, which underpins Play-to-Earn games. 

The partnership would be aimed at opening the services offered by FTX to GameStop customers and to the digital resource marketplace in general. In addition to collaborating with FTX on new e-commerce and online marketing initiatives, GameStop will begin carrying FTX gift cards in select stores.

In July, the company launched its own NFT marketplace amid a slump in the Non-Fungible Token market.

GameStop’s stock rose nearly 10% after the release of the news and GameStop’s fiscal second-quarter earnings. For the quarter that ended on 30 July, the company reported revenue of $1.14 billion, compared to the analyst consensus estimate of $1.27 billion. The company also reported an adjusted net loss of 36 cents per share, better than analysts’ estimates, which had predicted a loss of 42 cents per share.

FTX on the other hand appears to be one of the exchanges with the highest growth rates and looks to become as a benchmark for the entire industry after the difficult times following the collapses of Terra, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius, and Voyager. According to rumors, the company has $2 billion in the till to invest in the crypto sector.

In late July, the company proposed a bailout plan for users burned by the failure of Voyager Digital, which was stranded in the insolvency of 3AC, which failed to pay interest on a more than $6,500 million loan taken out with the company.

In June, the decentralized finance lending platform BlockFi announced that it had signed its own $250 million loan with FTX. For its part, FTX proves to be one of the fastest-growing and healthiest cryptocurrency companies. Many competing companies such as for example Coinbase in recent months have put in place heavy corporate downsizing plans, with thousands of layoffs.

Today @BlockFi signed a term sheet with @FTX_Official to secure a $250M revolving credit facility providing us with access to capital that further bolsters our balance sheet and platform strength.

— Zac Prince (@BlockFiZac) June 21, 2022

What is FTX

FTX is a cryptocurrency and crypto derivatives exchange. The company is headquartered in the Bahamas, and the founder is Sam Bankman-Fried, one of the best-known people in the cryptocurrency scene and the world’s richest under-30 man, who seems to be determined to become a sort of good Samaritan to the cryptocurrency market that has been struggling greatly in these first 8 months of 2022. 

Fried has already made bailout proposals for users burned by the failures of 3AC, Celsius, and Voyager. But his interventions are also certainly aimed at getting benefits from companies that are in great difficulty but have thousands of users who would thus be at least partly incorporated into the exchange. Similarly, the new partnership with the Gamestop chain, which has about 500 stores, is to be understood.

“We’re starting to get a few more companies reaching out to us. Those firms are generally not in dire situations, though some smaller crypto exchanges may still fail, he said, adding that the industry has moved beyond “other big shoes that have to drop.”

Gamestop was the protagonist a year ago of one of the most egregious cases of “bottom-up” speculation in the stock market, when a community on the social network Reddit, thanks to the Robin Hood investment app, managed to hold its own for a week against bearish bets from hedge funds. 

Two months ago, FTX began negotiations instead for a partnership with the US banking giant Goldman Sachs. The main objective of this agreement, which for the time being would still be in an embryonic stage, would be to expand its reach by looking increasingly at traditional finance markets as well. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs itself, as well as other large US banks, has long seemed to have radically changed its opinion on cryptocurrencies and their value as an asset.

This new partnership is thus another step toward greater adoption of cryptocurrencies in the real world.