During an interview Monday with TheStreet.com, Jamie Iannone – the CEO of e-commerce giant eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) – said the online retailer is exploring the possibility of accepting cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. He also stated that the company quietly changed its policy regarding the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), allowing them to be bought and sold using traditional payment methods such as PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), credit cards, and debit cards – since last year.
“We did change our policies last year so that you could trade NFTs on the platform and essentially, you know, eBay is a place where people have something to sell and people have something [to] buy show up,” said Iannaone in the media report. “So even without announcing anything or doing anything, people started trading NFTs 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 NFTs].”
However, Iannone said the platform does not currently accept any type of cryptocurrency as a payment option for the $85 billion in sales it facilitates every year in the form of its auctions or “Buy It Now” purchases. However, he said eBay has made a major shift toward managing its own payment systems.
“This gives us the ability to open up new forms of payment. We opened up Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Pay and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) 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,” Iannone said in the article. “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.”
Mark that date in your calendars crypto fans as it could mark a major milestone in mass adoption for cryptocurrencies, if a major online e-commerce pioneer such as eBay announces acceptance of crypto.
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