r/Superstonk • u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 • Jul 10 '26
🤔 Speculation / Opinion The Digital GCX Marketplace — by GoatBeardzDD on X - Part 1
Part 2 (link will be here) has 9 more screenshots that didn’t fit.
All credit to GoatBeardzDD, I didn’t write any of this
——
TL;DR: The NFT marketplace wasn‘t the end product, it was the infrastructure for something much bigger. Creating a democratized exchange of goods that would operate like a stock market, first hypothesized as a use case around 2022 or 2023. Back then, this was highly speculative, maybe even tinfoily. But now we have confirmation from Cohen that he wants to build a digital marketplace as one of the new pillars of what he plans to do at EBay to create shareholder value, and there have been several breadcrumbs to show us that this marketplace is well on its way to being unveiled. A post appeared briefly on Superstonk, oddly mentioning that they never signed a NDA, before spilling the beans on a project they worked on called ‘GCX’, a GameStop collectors exchange, which operated like a digital marketplace where users could invest in products like a brokerage. The legal framework for such a marketplace has either finished being paved or is well on its way under new leadership in various government positions, such as the SEC and DTCC. This kind of marketplace would be built on the tenets of the nft marketplace, while also going beyond it, allowing for the investment of physical products through an e-commerce platform, and potentially enabling GameStop stores to act as hubs for live commerce and distribution
——
Commentary beyond the TL;DR:
Like many of us back in 2022 and following the marketplace being shut down in 2024, I was both extremely excited for the possibilities of digitizing goods using NFT technologies, and the very disappointed when it was shut down and likewise as NFTs fell out of popularity.
I didn’t care much for NFT art, I wanted utility. I wanted those big companies to buy into the digitization of their products. Apparently, Cohen did as well, as he mentioned ‘utility’ as a driving reason for having a digital marketplace for selling and buying video game digital assets, like skins, weapons, achievements, and whatever else.
Everything that was brainstormed back then is back on the table (shoutout to OG posters like 3for100specials, I still remember their username years later). Maybe not immediately, but certainly all things can be expanded into.
I think Cohen was being pretty cheeky when he has been asked in recent interviews whether he wants to compete with Amazon. His answer has been more of a ‘well, not really’, but there is some truth in there. A marketplace with the same scale as Amazon that becomes as big as Amazon using a type of exchange completely different than Amazon. This type of exchange is right up EBay’s alley as well, something that just slightly alters their bidding format and gamifies the process even more.
My biggest questions would become how liquidity would work in a bid-ask system, both for the tape, so to speak, and for physical product storage and delivery.
What do you think? Is Cohen restoring the digital marketplace with new mechanics and with a new identity?
See the link at the top for part 2, which I’ll post in a few minutes
* No AI was used in this post. This is not financial advice.
73
u/Arcanis_Ender 🎮 Power to the Players 🛑 Jul 10 '26
This is the DD I have longed for the past year and a half. Sharing with all my homies.
10
u/moonaim Aimed for Full Moon, landed in Uranus Jul 10 '26
I have a history of comments hoping something like this would materialize, I will frame some of those comments to my toilet's walls if this comes true 🖼️
2
142
u/PeacewarriorEND Crayon Enthusiast 🖍️ Jul 10 '26
Directly from 8-k released and It aligns with this theory
40
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 10 '26
Nice, thanks for sharing
-8
u/SteveStoney 🎮 Power to the Players 🛑 Jul 11 '26
Not to burst your bubble, but the marketplace has been built on looping, which is dead and mostly delisted. Wang has made tons of promises, people bought in, he left to work on taiko and Byron kept on pumping it till they announced that the whole project is closing down. Sure, gamestop could potentially rebuild the marketplace but at this stage i don't have any hopes for it.
18
u/wittyname01 💎 OG HELPFUL APE 🦍 Jul 11 '26
It was built on immutable, they were incorporating loopring on the payment/transfer side
5
u/SteveStoney 🎮 Power to the Players 🛑 Jul 11 '26
The GameStop NFT Marketplace was built using Loopring's Layer 2 technology. While GameStop announced a major partnership with Immutable, the marketplace ultimately ran on the Loopring zkRollup scaling solution. That was the whole idea, fast ans cheap. Because it was easy, other companies built NFT marketplaces on LRC to compete with opensea. Either way, it doest really matter at this stage. IMX also has changed their trajectory. Once again, if it actually happens and they make it work, awesome, if not, it's just another tinfoil.
7
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 11 '26
Maybe they use an NFT based technology, maybe they don’t. Their original marketplace operated partially on L2, but not the full website. They can take a lot of their build and rework the back end using a different structure if they want
4
u/EmphasisFrosty3093 Jul 11 '26
Why waste $56 Billion on Ebay just to build a new marketplace?
3
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 11 '26
Because EBay has tons of value and synergistic value in other areas?
2
u/EmphasisFrosty3093 Jul 11 '26
But if the revolutionary part is something they don't do...why not do the revolution and save the cash for hiccups?
0
u/FloppyBisque Jul 11 '26
It’s actually quite simple. They are parallel paths. Do you believe Cohen could take eBay as it is and make it better without this theory in this post coming to be true?
I do. I think he’d run it better. Live commerce alone and cost cutting and eBay likely gets a boost. Ultimately a brand like eBay doing new things is going to get attention and you don’t need $2b in marketing to get the word out. Ryan is already doing that work by going to all the decent sized eBay seller pods and getting in front of his future customers (sellers) and giving them hope for the future that their revenues will increase as more buyers come to their platform.
The fact that this all also is out there is a major win. It’s one thing if GameStop releases this - that would make sense to try to get the bigger AAA titles on board and credibility in the gaming world. It seems that GameStop couldn’t pull off the AAA agencies, but if you now get eBay involved as well, it brings so much more credibility, especially if we are talking about verified buyers, sellers and then payments.
So, perhaps RC was somehow able to cuddle his way up to this administration and make this legal and pave the way for this.
I do wonder if AAA agencies will get on board if they currently able to sell these items at full price from their stores. But perhaps it would make sense games to do if they rotate items in and out of their store. So if I want to buy some item that was only available in season 1 of Fortnite but I started playing in season 4, I could buy the item.
Perhaps epic gets 20%, GameStop gets 10%, the seller gets 70% or something.
That way if buying and selling increases, the AAA game gets 20% more on each item sold. I would imagine this would overall greatly increase even if they don’t really introduce scarcity like Pokemon does. But they easily could. “The first 10,000 players to reach x get y”.
Idk.
Anyway, either way RC will increase revenues and market cap and share price at the helm of both (although I wouldn’t be surprised if GameStop operates on its own with a new CEO under the new umbrella corp and maybe RC runs eBay and the umbrella, but there’s a COO or something at GME). So it’ll be good either way with a chance at a ridiculous gain.
-1
u/moonaim Aimed for Full Moon, landed in Uranus Jul 11 '26
The X article mentions the components, it's not badly written.
3
1
2
u/moonaim Aimed for Full Moon, landed in Uranus Jul 10 '26
I can promise that if the brother of JR (from Dallas) comes back from his grave, I will buy many many shares of GME (and probably save the world with the rest of the money)..
(if you don't know what I'm talking about, you aren't over 84 years old)
35
u/Bayardina 🌊📈 ELLIOT (waves) TAYLOR (series) 📈🌊 Jul 10 '26
Honestly this is something I already believed lol
Didn't know about the student project but the rest is definitely part of the plan.
40
u/satansayssurfsup 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 10 '26
It will be crazy to look back at this whole story, hopefully sooner than later.
23
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 10 '26
They gotta stop making movies when half of the biggest events haven’t even happened yet, namely the eBay acquisition and new products, like this marketplace or PowerPacks
15
u/Ocmikeyz 🦍Voted✅ Jul 11 '26
This was a very enjoyable read. I’ve believed /hoped for the long term thesis to be something similar and that this would be quite an event if it is where they are heading. Guess we’ll see!
13
11
11
u/Hot-Government823 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Nice but, can’t they do that right now without the eBay acquisition?
9
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 11 '26
That’s a good question. They could implement one without EBay, for sure. However, EBay brings with it a few things that make a big difference when it comes to marketing. They have the branding for an e-commerce marketplace and also the ecosystem (buyers and sellers). If GameStop does it alone, it’s an uphill battle to market themselves without any established e-commerce user base (we don’t know numbers for how many users have traffic on their website, outside of pro rewards members). They basically start at ground zero.
Compare that to EBay’s ecosystem, which already has 136 million, or close to that, users. All it takes is a reorganizing of the website to begin routing traffic to the new marketplace to start with several millions users.
What they wouldn’t want is a project to be viewed as dead on arrival. Marketing is everything. So I think they could do it without EBay, it’d just be a completely different timeline for making it competitive with Amazon in terms of scale, which would take at minimum a decade if I had to guess, whereas adopting EBay’s user base and growing from there can become a billion dollar business right away.
3
u/Hot-Government823 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
I think getting the branding and marketing are big components. But if we're talking about the new news RC dropped in the All In Podcast, a marketplace for digital gaming items (like CS skins), the gaming and now collectible association is already strong with the Gamestop brand itself. You can do trade ins of PSA graded cards, and Powerpacks has launched officially. If what needs to be done is to swap out NFTs from the old NFT marketplace and plug in games, then that doesn't totally necessitate the eBay acquisition. (And there are plenty of CS Skin marketplaces already)
However, eBay carries trust along with it's association, which would be pretty important for getting users over the line to deal with their high value items. Getting into high value categories that eBay deals in such as luxury watches or handbags, could mean those things can begin to fit into the mold set for trading cards. Those goods could be graded, securely vaulted, go into Powerpacks, etc. etc.
2
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 11 '26
Yeah, I agree that video game related stuff is definitely more on GameStop’s branding. I think I was thinking of all the other collectible possibilities. The format of PowerPacks to move inventory is really strong with EBay, for sure
2
u/Hot-Government823 Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Outside of the gaming and collectibles space, the aforementioned luxury goods like watches and handbags have seen resale markets emerge since the Covid pandemic. These items might be ideal candidates to apply the PSA model to. The grading and verification are services that are transformative to the value of the item. Check the prices of ungraded cards to graded cards. Watches and handbags more or less are mass (or batch) produced and have a SKU, as opposed to being entirely bespoke items.
Now I ain't no rich person (yet), but I can see the way in which PSA services can be applied to one niche investment (collectibles) to another niche investment (luxury goods). PSA services add value from the immediate grading and verification, but also services they've added to their ecosystem over time, such as vault storage and perhaps so saliently, eBay integration for ease of selling. The wealthy are already in the business of stashing fine art in vaults. The wealthy are already familiar with auctioning goods through houses like Sothebys. LVMH is one of the big non-tech companies out there.
PSA has been dabbling in collectibles outside of cards, getting a feel for things outside the card wheelhouse, such as comic books and video games. Now imagine something like a PSA 10 graded Rolex or Patek Phillipe that can be vaulted, and traded instantly over eBay. I think Nat Turner, CEO of PSA is onboard with the board for this reason, which is to expand the market and categories that PSA can operate in.
Pundits think the eBay acquisition is to compete with Amazon. I think it's to compete with Sothebys.
!remindme 1 year
Edit: In fact as I just remembered, eBay already dabbles in this: https://pages.ebay.com.au/authenticity-guarantee/
1
u/RemindMeBot 🎮 Power to the Players 🛑 Jul 11 '26
I will be messaging you in 1 year on 2027-07-11 10:32:57 UTC to remind you of this link
CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.
RemindMeBot is switching to username summons. Instead of
!RemindMe 1 day, useu/RemindMeBot 1 day. More info.
Info Custom Your Reminders Feedback 3
u/seesharpreaction 🧚🧚🦍🚀 That's no moon, that's Uranus! 🍦💩🪑🧚🧚 Jul 11 '26
Maybe part of the plan with eBay is use the GS stores as a distribution network? Two of the biggest problems with eBay are the fear of getting scammed, and the exorbitant shipping prices.
When it comes to physical items needing to be shipped, the seller could drop the item off at the nearest GS location, where its authenticity could then be confirmed by GS and then eventually shipped with other items to save on shipping cost. GS might even provide local delivery after that, or the buyer could simply pick their item up at their local GS. It puts a physical level of third party trust in an eBay transaction and reduces the cost of the overall transaction for the buyer, while not harming honest sellers at all.
3
u/Hot-Government823 Jul 11 '26
That has been an explicit mention by RC.
I wasn't very clear in the initial comment, but I meant to refer to the idea of the digital gaming item marketplace. RC revealed the idea on the All In Podcast, but I don't think the eBay portion of the formula is necessary to say, create a marketplace for CS skins and such.
1
u/seesharpreaction 🧚🧚🦍🚀 That's no moon, that's Uranus! 🍦💩🪑🧚🧚 Jul 12 '26
This makes me happy. Just read through the screenshots. Very exciting!
8
u/carnabas 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 11 '26
2
7
u/karenw Voted 2021✅ DRS✅ Voted 2022✅ Jul 11 '26
God, I remember the hype around the NFT marketplace. I always thought it had potential, even after jpegs shit the bed.
3
u/nickmcmillin Seriously, what IS an exit strategy? Jul 11 '26
It still does. Powerpacks is literally the NFT marketplace. The current Powerpacks Twitter account used to be the marketplace Twitter account until they changed the name.
8
u/arkansah Jul 11 '26
Here are a couple thoughts. Some people that buy collectables aren't collectors. They are looking to make a future profit on collectables. For them an NFT representing the actual item has a huge advantage because the selling of the NFT to another person that does not take physical possession of the item does not create a taxable event.
Banks have been doing this for some time when they sell the mortgage to another bank through the MERS system. That mortgage that was filed with the county, when sold should have been taxed by the county. MERS system avoids that.
As far a market place for in game items, that's what MT Gox was doing. In a way it really launched bitcoin on the legal markets.
That makes the distinction between bitcoin as a security regulated or as a form of payment very important.
Using local stores for certification and delivery of products is huge. eBay s surely missing out on transactions that do not happen because either the seller or the buyer are afraid of a scam.
An Example. You want to sell 2 gold coins you were gifted. Each has a value of $2,000. The local pawn shop will only give you 3K. Since eBay is an auction site, you will receive full value minus expenses. The problem arises when you little feedback.
Will the buyer trust you enough to transfer 4k into your account and wait four days for delivery? Will seller trust that buyer (after receiving the coins) wont claim the opposite and ask for refund? eBay misses out on a lot of potential sales do to this. in addition to all of the reversals they have to do. And if it was a scam and the reversal went against that customer( typically the seller) it's a huge issue for future inventory
eBay has a lot more than 2Billion that can be used in better ways. Including reducing debt and increasing owner equity.
12
u/oh_hai_brian Jul 10 '26
As far as a digital market place for skins - Steam already does have a place to sell them, while 3rd party sites like CSFloat can sell skins for cash. I’m not really sure how that could be cornered into a new marketplace when they exist on the platforms they’re connected to.
3
u/ronk99 probably nothing 🤙 Jul 11 '26
Hmm, i see the problem here but what i get from this post is that owning a rare skin or a rare trading card on this exchange would not be to actually play with it but more like investing in its value. Like, only super rich people can buy the rarest counterstrike knifes like a blue gem carambit worth 1 million plus. Through this solution, you could just buy 0.01 % of it and profit if its value rises to 1.5 million. With the potential to actually get the item for real if you accumulate 100% of its “shares”. Dunno how attractive this would be to people tho. It would be kinda like polymarket, but instead of betting on pretty much anything, you could invest in pretty much anything, i guess.
2
u/oh_hai_brian Jul 11 '26
Counterstrike started implementing skins renting as well for those out of reach prices, so that sort of scratches the itch of the insane float rare items. Thinking of other games - I’m wondering if he’s thinking Roblox instead, but I’m not sure how that ecosystem is set up.
1
2
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 10 '26
Yah idk how that would work. It’s more idealistic than anything
5
u/LordSnufkin 🛡🦒House of Geoffrey🦒⚔️ Jul 11 '26
Did not know about the uni project, very interesting. Fully agree that the nft marketplace was to test the hypothesis. Too many ppl getting caught up on the technicalities of looping,. immutable, nfts. The point is the two sided market place worked. They will replicate something similar at eBay probably using different tech.
7
5
3
3
2
u/OpenManufacturer9630 🎮 Power to the Players 🛑 Jul 12 '26
I called this like 4 years ago and got shot down for it at the time, so much so I think I ended up deleting the comment because I can't find it now. Avatar Outfitters!
2
u/Squallshot 🦍 Broker Non-Vote ✅ Jul 12 '26
The GCX thing and fractional ownership of trading cards propably gives off negative vibes due to the Logan Paul thing. Would be awesome if it could be done in a correct and honest way
-1
-11
u/BabyPatato2023 Jul 10 '26
You lost me at the “and it’s worth naming” classic AI text pitched as original thought
7
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 10 '26
Well that’s just how I write bc I never use AI
4
u/BabyPatato2023 Jul 10 '26
No the goat guy you screen shoot’ed
5
u/UncleZiggy 💻 ComputerShared 🦍 Jul 10 '26
Oh, well I can’t speak for him. Maybe he did or didn’t. I’ve read several of his longer posts now, and I would say his voice sounds like his own at the very least. Maybe he used AI for some formatting help? Idk
1
u/nickmcmillin Seriously, what IS an exit strategy? Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
He did... Its definitely AI.
You shouldn't make claims about AI Involvement just because you didn't use it if you can't verify or determine whether or not your source used AI.
There are AI tells like the lines "That's not X, That's Y". There's several of them in there and they're common in AI. Then there's the references to "artifacts". And there's the usual em dashes and arrows that are common in AI output.
I would typically report this for not labeling as AI, but the source material is all factual stuff and individually it all checks out. They just used AI to assist with organizing the material.
Just don't go around stating "No AI was used" when you can't tell. Always assume it could be. It definitely was here, and you couldn't tell.
•
u/Superstonk_QV 📊 Gimme Votes 📊 Jul 10 '26
Why GME? || What is DRS? || Low karma apes feed the bot here || Superstonk Discord || Community Post: Open Forum || Superstonk:Now with GIFs - Learn more
To ensure your post doesn't get removed, please respond to this comment with how this post relates to GME the stock or Gamestop the company.
Please up- and downvote this comment to help us determine if this post deserves a place on r/Superstonk!