The native cryptocurrency token of Loopring (CRYPTO: LRC), an Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) Layer 2 solution, surged by 46% on Thursday.

What Happened: The sudden spike in price followed an announcement that GameStop Corp.’s (NYSE:GME) widely anticipated NFT marketplace had gone live on Loopring.

The future of #NFTs are here + they’re powered by #Ethereum‘s second layer

Loopring L2 x @GameStop

Power to the players.
Power to the creators
Power to the collectors.#L222https://t.co/0gdvKLivfp

— Loopring (@loopringorg) March 23, 2022

Loopring’s head of growth Adam Browman stated that users can get early access to the beta version of the NFT marketplace and set up their profiles and make deposits ahead of the full launch which will be deployed soon.

Why It Matters: “In order to return Power to the Players, access needs to be fast, cheap, and secure for the masses,” stated Browman.

Loopring is Layer 2 zkRollup protocol designed to power efficient payments across Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges and marketplaces. Users would be able to mint NFTs directly on Loopring Layer 2 for less than $1, as per the project. This would be a fraction of the cost of minting NFTs on a Layer 1, but users would still benefit from Ethereum Layer 1 security.

In November 2021, Benzinga reported that a leak in the Loopring GitHub public repository seemingly indicated a partnership with GameStop was in the works. LRC rallied by 43.27% at the time, extending a 90% rally over a seven-day period.

Earlier this year, GameStop announced that it had partnered with Immutable X (CRYPTO: IMX) — another Ethereum Layer 2 protocol — for its upcoming NFT marketplace. On-chain data revealed that, a few days later, GameStop cashed out $47 million worth of IMX tokens from the $100 million grant it received as part of the partnership deal.

Price Action: At press time, LRC was trading at $1.12 with a trading volume of $2.6 billion. GameStop shares closed 14.50% higher on Wednesday at a price of $141, as per data from Benzinga Pro.

Photo: Courtesy of Will Buckner via Wikimedia