IMX token tumbles as GameStop appears to dump $42 million from Immutable X grant

GameStop has likely sold almost 15 million IMX tokens currently worth $42 million shortly after receiving a $100 million grant from Immutable X.

After receiving the stash of tokens with no vesting period, GameStop sent the tokens to multiple crypto exchanges and the price of IMX dumped significantly within a short time period thereafter — implying that they were sold.

Following the coins being sent to the exchanges, the price of IMX has dropped from a two-week high of $4.13 to a low of $2.80 — down 30%. Per CoinGecko, the token is trading hands at $2.97 as of press time. 

GameStop recently received a $100 million grant from the Ethereum Layer 2 network as part of a partnership to build an NFT marketplace. This grant, denominated in IMX to the tune of 56,209,850 IMX tokens was to be delivered across five installments.

According to Etherscan data, GameStop has received the first two milestone payments of 28,104,925 and 9,368,608 IMX tokens respectively. It appears that the tokens were not bound to any vesting periods. GameStop will recieve following installments on tokens based on meeting certain goals.

A look at GameStop’s wallet on Etherscan shows three transactions where IMX tokens moved from the company’s contract address to wallets associated with Binance, OKX, and Huobi, all of which are crypto exchanges.

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The video game retailer appears to have liquidated a total of 14,989,293 IMX tokens currently worth approximately $42 million.

This is not the first case of a crypto-related grant being spent immediately dumped. A similar situation happened with Uniswap’s DeFi education fund in July 2021 when Harvard Law’s Blockchain and Fintech Initiative immediately sold half of the $20 million grant it received.

According to the milestone schedule stated in the grant document, GameStop will receive 18,736,671 IMX tokens in three future installments.

Neither GameStop nor Immutable X has responded to The Block’s request for comments as of the time of writing.

Hat tip Polarply/Twitter

Editor's Note: Corrects OKex to OKX.

About Author

Osato is a news reporter at The Block as part of the crypto ecosystems team that focuses on DAO governance, staking, blockchain layers, and DeFi. He was previously a news reporter at Cointelegraph. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, he enjoys crosswords, poker, and attempting to beat his Scrabble high score. Follow him on Twitter at @OsatoNomayo.