GameStop is chugging along with its crypto and NFT plans.
GameStop Wallet (beta)
Well bois, it's here. The MetaMask killer itself has arrived to shake up the magical world of crypto. Obviously I'm joking, I think MetaMask will live forever as the default wallet for every day users. There are more and more wallets for cryptocurrency and NFTs coming out so people have many more options now than they did a few years ago for storing their assets. Now, GameStop has finally arrived to the party.
Months ago, GameStop announced that they would be launching an NFT marketplace with the help of Immutable X, the guys behind Gods Unchained. This got a lot of mixed reactions from the gamer community. Honestly, I think it's a healthy pivot for their business considering they have been dying for a while (opinion). They can't be selling very many games these days, right? Like do people really go to GameStop anymore?
Can this pivot to crypto and NFTs turn things around for them? Potentially. Who knows. I'm just here to test it and play with it.
Right now you can download the GameStop wallet browser extension and get started. If you click on the Mobile wallet link, it just says coming soon to iOS. I would seriously hope that they plan on creating a wallet app for Android, and I think they would be really dumb not to. Anyway - getting the wallet is stupid simple. Click Download for Chrome if you're using Google Chrome of Brave. It will take you to the webstore and then you just click "add to chrome."
If you're thinking "this sounds familiar", you're absolutely right. Getting MetaMask is the exact same process. I'd bet that it even looks similar. Let's check this set up out.
Right off the bat, you get the classic "Power to the players" slogan and a very minimal wallet. Create a wallet or Recover one with your seed phrase. I like the idea of having a fresh wallet, so I'm doing that.
You'll be met with terms and conditions. Then of course a disclosure that this a self-custodial wallet that you and only you will have access to. Uncheck the last one if you don't want GameStop to steal your data.
After that, you'll be presented with your secret recovery phrase, which you should write down. Then you'll create a password. That's pretty much it. The wallet will let you know that it supports Ethereum layer 1 and Loopring for layer 2. If you've never used a layer 2 solution for Ethereum like Polygon or Loopring, you need to deposit some funds to that layer to use it. Just like Ethereum, main network you will need some of the native token to interact with apps.
There's a few options such as depositing ETH directly, or even using a debit card to get some funds there. I was genuinely hoping that the Immutable integration would be used for this, but I guess that's really just for NFTs. They chose Loopring for holding non-NFT cryptocurrencies.
The interface of the wallet is very simple, there's a tab for Crypto, a tab for NFTs, and a tab for Swapping. Then of course you can see your transaction history in Activity. I love that it's in dark mode by default.
Just looking at the settings, the wallet literally only supports Ethereum main net and Loopring. There's currently no way to add other networks like Polygon and BNB Chain. I don't really know if they have plans for adding this ability in the future, but I think they would be dumb not to considering they would have a much larger user-base for their wallets.
Of course you can do all the other things like add custom tokens, and all of your other wallet functions. Just keep in mind that you will only be able to use the layer 2 functions on apps that support Loopring so this is not going to be a "main wallet" for a lot of people. That's pretty much it. It's still in beta and very basic.
What do you think of this release? Does it make you excited for the release of their NFT marketplace? Do you think it's weird? Lemme know.