GameStop’s Head of Blockchain felt the need to clear the air as anticipation rose towards the rumored July 14th GameStop NFT launch date.
GameStop’s Head of Blockchain, Matt Finestone, took to Twitter to reveal that the highly-anticipated launch date of July 14th seen in GameStop’s NFT contract was nothing more than a nod to the anticipated date of Ethereum’s next upgrade.
EIP-1559 greatly improves the UX of tx fees on Ethereum!
The GameStop NFT Contract
GameStop investors and crypto-enthusiasts alike had begun to speculate on the launch date based on line 936 of the GameStop NFT contract, which stated a ‘public launchDate’ of GameStop NFT in unicode as ‘1626261600‘.
Converted out of unicode, a launch date of July 14th, 2021, at 4:20 AM PT was revealed.
Several other mishaps have been previously noted in the GameStop NFT contract, such as a seemingly out of place reference to the cryptopunks craze.
In late May, when one Twitter user claimed that GameStop had “just FOMO into Ethereum,” foobar, a contributor to the GameStop NFTeam, went on the defensive and worked to explain GameStop’s NFT contract.
The GameStop NFT contract creator and Punk #4257 states that the contract that was posted on nft.gamestop.com only mints the standalone teaser NFT, and that’s it.
foobar goes on to say that he spent too much time on the vanity address, which featured several gaming references that fans appreciated.
0x13374200c29C757FDCc72F15Da98fb94f286d71e
Spent too much time on the vanity address and not enough on variable names… Back to building!
busy building, moving fast
Finestone has also expressed similar rhetoric towards a push to continue building.
In a response to Twitter user HappyBagholder, the Head of Blockchain stated that there is no date set in stone for GameStop NFT, and now the team is busy building.
GMEdd has counted double-digit blockchain/NFT hires bringing innovative experience to the gaming retailer, with current data visible on GMEdd’s Report and Models page.
GameStop’s Blockchain division hires include, but are not limited to:
While bullish investors may be disappointed to hear GameStop’s NFT project isn’t ready for a launch four days from now, a tweet from May 5th by foobar looking for crypto talent reminds everyone that the team moves fast.
With 10 minutes to market close on Thursday, Ryan Cohen has shared his support for a fan’s project to create a LEGO set of a classic GameStop store.
In what may signify a change of pace towards the GameStop Chairman’s infrequent acknowledgements of retail investors, Ryan Cohen has linked to a fan-created GameStop Classic Shop on ideas.lego.com with the caption “I ❤️ this.”
Ryan Cohen’s link bumped the set from only 295 supporters to over 1,000, immediately becoming one of the fastest-growing Ideas on LEGOs site.
Full of jokes
The set makes several references to GameStop’s retail investor culture, including the Wallstreetbets guy holding a diamond in one hand, and a crayon in another, drawing a stock chart that resembles NYSE:GME’s past… all while an ape watches.
The EXIT sign on the rear of the store is also green and crossed out, signifying the lack of an exit strategy among many investors, a line made famous by deepfuckingvalue.
Oh, and the GameStop is on the literal moon.
The Inspiration
The creator says that, while this is his first LEGO Ideas set, it is inspired by both the LEGO community and GameStop fans all over the globe.
Inspired by the community of both Lego Ideas and the GameStop Fans all over the globe – and also their connection through Lego video games, I created a classic GameStop Shop. Hope you like it, maybe send it to the moon with your likes? The Set is supposed to release with five mini figures, one representative ape, and the graffiti on the backside.
Located by GameStop’s Corporate Headquarters in Grapevine, Texas, is a Legoland Discovery Center just 12 minutes away. The Discovery Centres are smaller versions of the Legoland theme parks located around the world.
Check out the GameStop Classic Shop LEGO Ideas project page here.
With GameStop opening their second fulfillment center under Ryan Cohen’s leadership in Reno, Nevada the gaming retailer’s plan seems strikingly familiar.
GameStop today announced the continued expansion of its North American fulfillment network and entry into a lease of a 530,000 square foot facility in Reno, Nevada, which is expected to be operational in 2022.
When Ryan Cohen was asked about fulfillment at Chewy during his TechCrunch interview in 2019, the founder discusses how his leap of faith started by the opening of a fulfillment center in Pennsylvania and then one in Reno, Nevada.
We hired a bunch of people who were experts in fulfillment and we flew to Mechanicsburg, Pa. to lease a 400,000-square-foot space, and within nine months or so, we became expert at doing fulfillment. It was risky. It was totally outside of our areas of competence. But by August of 2014, after breaking everything first, that center was humming along, and then we launched another in Reno. At that point, we went national.
The Rise of Chewy to Prove the Core Value of Any E-commerce Product by Ally Nguyen states that a year after that first breakthrough in Pennsylvania, Cohen launched Chewy’s second building in Reno, Nevada, and that second time just seems like the one-hundredth already.
When Cohen was granted his new position at the Annual Shareholders Meeting, he updated his bio to feature a chair emoji and GameStop’s username. In the last few weeks, Cohen slightly changed his Twitter bio, properly capitalizing both @Chewy and @GameStop and removing the comma in-between both companies. Sorry, we’re a bit crazy.
Now, Cohen has updated his cover photo as well, ditching the Florida palm trees in favor of the famous slogan.
Power to the Players
This same slogan and graphic design is now featured as a cover photo for @GameStop on Twitter.
Jordan Holberg is an eccentric geek, gamer, decentralist, funny-guy, and now GameStop’s Principal Engineer, confirmed via Twitter and LinkedIn today.
GameStop has revealed very little about what their Blockchain and NFT projects consist of. Upon finding Jordan Holberg, GameStop’s latest hire on LinkedIn, GMEdd was compelled to dig deeper.
You’re Hired
In Jordan’s hiring announcement, he reveals personal nostalgia for Babbage’s, the company that GameStop used to be. The gamer describes his childhood visits to the brick-and-mortar retailer, alongside his decentralized ideals.
As Principal Engineer for GameStop, and … with my analog childhood and digital adolescence, I am the bridge between the old and the new — traditional “legacy” ecommerce and the next generation of blockchain.
Holberg states that he believes working for the new GameStop is a truly unique opportunity, with a company at the center of the zeitgeist, well-positioned to make a significant and positive impact.
If I’m going back to full-time and potentially having to wear pants again, you know I’m excited.
The update makes it clear: Jordan is a nostalgic gamer with an impressive ecommerce and blockchain background.
The Principal Engineer shares his excited outlook for the future of GameStop, bridging “traditional ecommerce”, which he refers to as a legacy business, and blockchain, all wrapped up in what may be the most fun LinkedIn profile we’ve come across yet.
past experience
Jordan Holberg’s past indicates why he would be such a critical hire for the transforming gaming retailer. Jordan was Barneys.com’s first employee, granting him valuable experience working as a trailblazer in retail brick and mortar pivots to ecommerce.
Holberg states some of his major accomplishments while growing Barneys New York:
$0 to $180 million+ revenue
Responsible for barneys.com front-end and technical back-end, including management of 30k+ active SKUs
Achieved highest EBITDA across all Barneys’ doors
After Barneys, he later moved on to contract work as a self-proclaimed Digital Fixer working for various high profile clients. Holberg states that his clients included: Ogilvy, TBWA/Chiat/Day, TOWN Real Estate, Extell, Vince Camuto, Jessica Simpson, BorderFree, Amway, IBM, and many others.
Jordan quipped in March, around the same time GameStop’s NFT project commenced, that his “head is full of use-cases and functionality NFT can unlock across finance, social media and gaming”.
He describes a project he had been building, named Hodlberg, that works to demonstrate his extensive knowledge of blockchain and NFTs.
Hodlberg Financial’s Official FAQ page states it lets one “attest” their cryptocurrency holdings and mint a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) on the Ethereum blockchain. The minted Hodlberg NFT aggregates all attested wallet balances into one convenient token, without compromising privacy. The balance and token data aggregated into your Hodlberg NFT is always up-to-date.
This allows for some interesting possibilities, including among other things, most notably for GameStop, “a unique, evolving, in-game asset”.
Eccentric As Hell
According to his LinkedIn, Holberg attended NYU from 1999-2002, where he was actually a cat donning a red headband.
Seriously. If you ever needed proof we live in a simulation, here it is.
His love for feline friends dates back at least 7 years, to this photo in an office space.
Jordan even has a personal website, jordanholberg.com, which features lolcatz language sprawled from top-to-bottom and a giant CLICK ME button in the famous impact font often used in meme culture.
When we saw this, we pondered what clicking the button will do. Could it reveal GameStop’s purpose for venturing into blockchain?
Well, we clicked it, and it just plays Holberg’s favorite music.
Here are the songs you will hear if you sit on his website for long enough:
Phil Collins – Against All Odds (Take a Look at me now)
Rick Springfield – Jessie’s Girl
Eddie Money – Take Me Home Tonight
Heart – Alone
Mike + the Mechanics – All I Need Is a Miracle
The Outfields – I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love Tonight
Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares To You
Asia – Heat of the Moment
Human League – Human
The Pretenders – I’ll Stand By You
Not only does Holberg’s site bring a sense of nostalgia to his work, his choice in music cannot be beat.
There is more to his homepage than you can see on the surface. Knowing his site will be crawling with speculative investors seeking clues and puzzle pieces, a quick search of the website’s code shows his humorous personality.
ooo look at you! so clever!
The headband-wearing, classic rock-playing, cat-loving blockchain dev should be a good fit for the GameStop NFTeam, who seem to have welcomed him with open arms, indicated by Finestone’s tweet.
Jordan also has his own YouTube channel with quirky, meme-worthy videos. Referring to himself as EvilJordan, he breaks societal norms for a business professional, posting a plethora of videos that range from him dancing shirtless to him playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and even his cats.
The article was titled, Is There Money In The NFT Fad For Sports Media Brands?, published on April 19, 2021.
Demetri states that in order to figure out the answer to the question, he asked his friend Jordan Holberg for help. Jordan and Demetri went school together from third grade until the end of high school. Demetri also claims that Jordan once made him laugh so hard he peed his pants.
When Demetri asked Jordan what NFTs offer a sports fan, the crypto-fanatic responded that the first thing that pops into his head is community.
It’s dead-simple, at least in relative terms, to create a gated social community experience for NFT holders. It’s like a virtual ticket that isn’t forgeable, could be non-transferable, and has the potential to constantly make money for its issuer.
Jordan stated that he doesn’t have predictions on what will happen, but knows that NFTs have shown social media networks, company websites, and mobiles games are due for disruption.
GameStop’s latest Principal Engineer believes that cryptocurrency and NFTs have opened up a whole new world of what it means to be a consumer of entertainment and culture, and, for the moment, the sky’s the limit.
We can see that Jordan’s accomplishments in e-commerce and blockchain are stacked, and he already looks to be fitting right in with the existing blockchain division. He also loves cats, is nostalgic for GameStop, and lives to meme.
Despite being self-employed for almost a decade, Holberg is excited to return to full-time work. The decentralization geek believes that GameStop is a truly unique opportunity, with a company well-positioned to make a significant and positive impact.
Let’s see what he makes of it.
Jenna, vestro, and Jack0 contributed. Toast edited and contributed.
GameStop Corp. today announced that it has completed its previously announced “at-the-market” equity offering program.
GameStop disclosed on June 9, 2021 that it filed a prospectus supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to offer and sell up to a maximum of 5,000,000 shares of its common stock from time to time through the ATM Offering.
GameStop ultimately sold 5,000,000 shares of common stock and generated aggregate gross proceeds before commissions and offering expenses of approximately $1,126,000,000.
GameStop states that the company will use net proceeds from the ATM Offering for general corporate purposes as well as for investing in growth initiatives and maintaining a strong balance sheet.
George Sherman, who was set to officially step down from his CEO role next month, has served as the Grapevine-based video game retailer’s chief executive since 2019.
GameStop Corp. today announced the appointment of Matt Furlong to the Company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. The appointment date aligns with Mr. Furlong’s start date as GameStop’s new Chief Executive Officer.
Coinciding with Mr. Furlong’s appointment, George Sherman has retired from the Board. Five of the six members of the Board remain independent.
Furlong was named GameStop’s incoming CEO earlier this month at Q1 2021 Earnings. Furlong, a former Amazon executive, was hired as part of new chairman Ryan Cohen’s plan to expand e-commerce initiatives.
Sherman’s resignation from the board is effective immediately.
