In brief
- EBay is exploring potential crypto payments, per CEO Jamie Iannone.
- He also said the marketplace is looking at opportunities around NFTs.
EBay is exploring its options around cryptocurrency payments and NFTs, according to CEO Jamie Iannone.
Iannone, who took the reins at EBay last year, teased the news in a segment this morning on CNBC’s Squawk Box. (The price of EBay stock took a big hit last week, falling 10% in a single day—Iannone was mostly there to put shareholders at ease.)
“We’re expanding the types of payments that we take,” he said, pointing to non-crypto payment platforms like Apple Pay and Google Pay, before adding that the company plans to “continue to look at other options, like cryptocurrencies.”
He also said EBay is looking into the NFT market. “We’re looking at it and exploring opportunities for how we can enable it on EBay in an easy way,” he said, noncommittally.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens that can be used to represent proof of ownership in digital items. They've generated more than $1.5 billion in sales in the first quarter of the year, according to DappRadar, and have become especially popular within the digital art and collectibles space.
EBay is no stranger to noncommittally exploring blockchain-based payments systems: the company was attached to Facebook’s blockchain project, Diem (formerly “Libra”), but abandoned it in 2019. And the e-commerce site has been mulling adding Bitcoin and other cryptos as payment options to its platform since at least 2014.
As of now, there are no concrete plans around how exactly crypto might be incorporated into the platform.