GameStop shares surged nearly 30% in after-hours trading on January 6 upon announcement of the company’s concrete cryptocurrency and non-fungible token plans, Barrons wrote.
The videogame retailer is developing an NFT marketplace and creating a division for cryptocurrency partnerships, insiders reported.
Erasing recent slide
Shares of GameStop soared 29% to almost $170, almost eliminating a recent slide over the past month. The insider added that GameStop’s crypto plans have been in the works for months and that the company has added around 20 people to its crypto and blockchain team.
Moreover, it has appointed top crypto advisors to support its efforts.
According to the company’s management, these plans have a lot of potential as more gamers turn to new gaming experiences and cryptocurrencies to buy NFTs.
Partnership with Loopring in the works?
Over the past few months, Reddit users have been speculating on whether the videogame retailer has plans for a partnership with decentralized financial company Loopring, which is behind the LRC token.
Loopring is currently the 57th biggest coin by market cap. At the time of writing, it was trading for $1.76 with a 24-hour trading volume of $613.7 million. Its price has remained unchanged in the last 24 hours. Its live market cap is $2.3 billion. Loopring may be available for purchase on some of these exchanges.
The main idea behind Loopring
Loopring combines elements of centralized and decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges to create a protocol that will enjoy their unique advantages and eliminate inefficiencies.
Custodial risks: hacking and malware
Using a centralized exchange carries a number of risks, the chief of which is their custodial nature. Because these exchanges hold users’ funds for them between the points of depositing and withdrawing, those funds come under the risk of being partially or fully lost due to potential hacker attacks, malicious actors inside the exchange or regulatory intervention.
Lack of transparency
The fact that trades are not settled on the blockchain, but rather stored in the exchange’s internal records makes possible price manipulation by the exchange and allows it to use user funds for unauthorized purposes while in custody.
Issues solved by Loopring’s setup
In order to eliminate these problems, a new type of trading service has emerged in recent years: a decentralized crypto exchange.
Instead of holding user funds in custody and processing trades internally, it helps buy and sell orders connect directly with each other and settle trades on a public blockchain.
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