A meme stock’s second shot at the moon

Image Credits: TechCrunch

Everyone’s favorite 2020 meme stock is back in the news, and this time it’s flexing on crypto industry incumbent Coinbase. GameStop, which largely operates brick-and-mortar retail stores for video games, made a foray into the metaverse with its launch of an NFT marketplace this week. In just two days of being live, the platform brought in roughly $3.5 million worth of ETH in sales, making the ~$1.8 million Coinbase has made through its own NFT marketplace since its launch back in May look like chump change.

Hello and welcome back to the Chain Reaction podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious.

This week, Lucas and Anita dove into GameStop’s financials and the competitive landscape for NFTs to examine whether its early web3 success can last. They also talked about what could shape up to be one of crypto’s most consequential rug pulls (even if it wasn’t on purpose) and why crypto VCs are hoarding cash right now.

Our guest: Yat founder and CEO Naveen Jain

You know those strings of emojis celebrities like Ke$ha have been putting in their Twitter bios? They’re Yats, a product CEO Naveen Jain sees as an identity solution for web3 users. Jain explained to us how these emojis have anything to do with crypto and shared his views on whether providing people with clout is enough to sustain a market in the long term. Why the eagle emoji, you ask? It’ll all make sense once you listen to the episode.