Why Giant eBay Could Integrate Bitcoin And Crypto Payments

E-commerce giant eBay might include Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as payment methods, according to a report from TheStreet. The platform has been making a push to become more friendly with digital assets in an attempt to expand its user base.

The company’s CEO Jamie Iannone spoke to the media outlet about their plans to integrate Bitcoin payments into their platform. In that sense, eBay could make an official announcement on March 10, during their upcoming “day dedicated to investors”. The executive said:

We’re just completing our transition to manage payments where we’re now managing $85 billion of volume on our platform directly. This gives us the ability to open up new forms of payment. We opened up Google Pay and Apple Pay. We have a partnership with Afterpay in Australia, which is a platform that appeals to Gen Z, and that is a buy now pay later platform on the marketplace.

The company continues to “evaluate” payment methods to become, as emphasized by its CEO, more appealing to the so-called Gen Z consumers. Per the report, eBay is implementing different strategies to attract younger generations, by particularly focusing on shoes and other categories. Iannone added:

We’re not accepting crypto currently, but on March 10, we’re going to go deeper on all of these things, payments, advertising, our focus categories.

Integrating with eBay could represent a significant expansion in terms of adoption for cryptocurrencies. The platform has an estimate of 187 million users worldwide, a metric that has seen steady growth since 2010.

Will March 10^th Be The Date For A Bitcoin/eBay Integration?

Iannone addressed the boom of digital assets on eBay. In 2021, the company changed its policy allowing users to trade their non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Before this change was introduced, users were trading their digital assets on the platform. The CEO said:

So even without announcing anything or doing anything, people started trading NFT on a platform. It reminded me of many years ago when people just started selling cars when we didn’t even have a vehicle business at that point. So we’re seeing the same type of thing [with NFT].

The executive is aiming at making eBay a hub for digital assets trading, a place where people can “trade goods, whether they be physical or digital”.

However, eBay has been hinting and talking about the possibility of accepting Bitcoin and crypto payments for years. Remains to be seen if March 10 will finally be the month when the rumor becomes reality.

The NFT sector has been heavily affected by a recent phishing scam that allowed bad actors to steal assets from OpenSea. The most important NFT marketplace in the industry, its transaction volume has been on a decline since February 20^th, when the vulnerability was revealed.