Jamie Iannone, CEO of popular marketplace eBay, announced that starting March 10, the platform will start accepting crypto payments. Today, the search term “ebay crypto” is trending up 700%.
Discover alternative payment methods
“We are completing our transition to manage payments, where we now manage $85 billion of volume directly on our platform,” Iannon told Street, “It gives us the opportunity to open up new forms of payment.”
He says in interviews that eBay should become the platform for Gen Z and Millennials. “We have opened up Google Pay and Apple Pay. We have a partnership with Afterpay in Australia which is a platform that attracts Gen Z which is the Buy Now Pay Later platform in the Marketplace. Because of this, we are working on other forms of payment. We are continuing to evaluate the types we should take on the platform. We do not currently accept any cryptocurrencies on the platform.” Ianon said.
When it comes to eBay’s stance on innovative technology like blockchain and cryptocurrencies, Iannon noted the growing popularity of non-fungible tokens on its platform without making an official statement about it.
Increasing popularity of crypto
The platform is reportedly already generating volumes of around $85 billion, after which it is looking for new payment methods. The growing popularity of the entire crypto and NFT market will be a reason to add crypto as a payment option.
Several other parties have already come before eBay with some form of crypto acceptance. However, this is not the first time eBay has been associated with the crypto world. In 2014, the platform had already attempted to support bitcoin as a payment option. At the time, however, there was still little demand for it. Now that seems to have changed completely. It seems that crypto is becoming more mainstream and with it more acceptable to the masses. It is not yet known when the integration will be complete.
eBay isn’t new to crypto
What many may not know is that eBay already has a marketplace for NFTs, making the option of paying in crypto a logical next step. At the time of writing, there are over 1,000 Art NFTs for sale on the platform.
It immediately became clear that NFTs are a suitable asset to sell on platforms such as eBay. Users can access NFTs live on the platform without the company stating anything. “So without any announcement or anything, people started trading non-fungible tokens on our platform,” Ianon said.
With the advent of crypto, eBay could become the market leader over other online marketplaces. Everyone is already familiar with the platform, and crypto adoption can help it become the largest crypto and NFT market all at once. At the moment, there are a few large online marketplaces where you can shop with crypto.
“It reminds me of years ago when people started selling cars, when we didn’t even have a vehicle business at that time. So we see the same sort of thing with NFTs. eBay will be where people trade goods, whether physical or digital.”