Last week, GameStop
The game retail firm's NFT site reads: "Calling all creators. Request to be a creator on the GameStop NFT Marketplace." The form asks users the following questions: "What should we call you? What best describes you? Independent artist/creator/game dev/meme lord/Company/brand/game studio/IP holder. What do you have in mind for collaborating with the GameStop NFT marketplace? Please provide your email/ethereum address so we can get back to you."
GameStop first unveiled its NFT initiative in May, and now it is taking a step closer to finalizing the project. Just like the thesis of investing in retail favorite GameStop, opinions on NFTs are divided among fans who think they represent the future of collectibles and critics who think they are simply an irrational unsustainable fad.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
Polygon announced Wednesday it had successfully patched a serious exploit that put at risk 9 billion MATIC tokens worth $20.2 billion. The blockchain network revealed that it gave a white hat hacker who helped avert a multibillion-dollar disaster in early December a $2.2 million bug bounty. The hacker known as "Leon Spacewalker" first reported an exploit in a critical Polygon smart contract that held over 9 billion MATIC tokens on December 3, and core developers rushed a fix by the 5th. But the patch was not quick fast enough to protect all the contract's funds, as separate hackers stole 801,601 MATIC tokens worth about $1.4 million on December 4. The Polygon Foundation said it took the loss. But the hard fork patch went live across 90% of network validators, helping protect a massive trove of crypto capital. Polygon's developers acknowledged their initial silence created a precarious position, but they asserted they made the best decision possible given the situation under pressure.
Mexico confirmed Wednesday it aims to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by 2024, the Mexican government said in a tweet. According to the statement, the country's central bank Banxico "will have a digital currency of its own in circulation" by 2024 as it considers of "utmost importance these new technologies and state-of-the-art payment infrastructure as options of great value to advance financial inclusion in the country." Banxico deputy governor Jonathan Heath said the bank plans to have its CBDC in place "by the end of 2024, at the latest." He noted: "We're going to have the use of paper money as the preponderant payment domestically for a long time, so we don't want to be absent from these technological advances." With the new plan, Mexico joins Brazil and Peru as Latin American countries working on the development of CBDCs.
Crypto prices dipped to $2.24 trillion this week to ring in a historic year of appreciation. For the majors, all except stablecoins slipped, with Solana (SOL) and Terra (LUNA) posting outsized losses. In the top 100, the biggest decliners were Kadena (KDA), down 21%, Holo (HOT), down 14%, and Enjin Coin (ENJ), down 14%. The biggest gainers were XDC Network (XDC), up 22%, yearn.finance (YFI), up 20%, and SushiSwap (SUSHI), up 15%. Next week traders will see if Bitcoin can approach $50,000 again.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.
