GameStop Taps Immutable X for NFT Marketplace, Launches $100M Gaming Fund

After tipping off its plans for the metaverse in a Web 3 job posting in October, GameStop is partnering with Immutable X for the launch of its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.

The gaming retail giant said Thursday it tapped the layer 2 system, to be used atop Ethereum, because of Immutable's “zero gas fees for trading and minting NFTs in a carbon-neutral environment,” according to a press release, referring to non-fungible tokens.

GameStop plans for its marketplace to include “billions of low-cost, in-game assets that can easily be bought and sold,” specifically mentioning digital real estate and in-game skins to be included.

The marketplace is tapping Starkware for help with its back end, which is a zero-knowledge proof technology that can combine thousands of Ethereum transactions into one.

Read more: GameStop Enters the Metaverse With ‘Web3 Gaming’ Job Post

GameStop has also partnered with Trace and Cool Effect to “offset its remaining carbon footprint,” in what could be a bid to avoid the backlash that’s become commonplace with mainstream NFT involvement. (FTX similarly purchased carbon offsets before its Coachella NFT announcement.)

Along with the marketplace news, GameStop and Immutable announced the launch of a $100 million fund dedicated to supporting Web 3 game development in its ecosystem.

The fund aims at attracting game developers and studios to the marketplace, becoming just one of many $100 million plus gaming funds to launch in the past few months. (Mechanism Capital, Gala Games, Solana Ventures and Hashed being a few of the others.)

“The GameStop mission is literally power to the players, and that is exactly what we're trying to do here,” Robbie Ferguson, co-founder of Immutable, told CoinDesk in an interview. “The $100 million is a minimum of what we’re doing.”

Immutable raised a $65 million Series B in September led by BITKRAFT Venture and King Rival Capital. Its IMX token was up sharply in early morning trading.