Is eBay Ready to accept crypto payments?
According to base of coinsthe online marketplace showed a "digital wallet" slide during its Investor Day presentation on Thursday (March 10), though the company has yet to make any definitive announcements.
Speculation that eBay might start accepting cryptocurrency payments began circulating late last month, when CEO jamie iannon he said in an interview that the company was "going to dig into all these things, payments, advertising, our focus categories" on March 10.
But aside from saying it would have a digital wallet out of the box sometime in the second quarter, eBay did not make any cryptocurrency-specific announcements during the presentation, Coinbase said.
Read more: eBay could announce its decision on crypto payments on March 10
Iannone said the company "continues to look for new forms of payment to add now that we have the full global payments rollout."
Iannone said last month that eBay was processing an $85 billion payment volume directly on its platform, which "gives us the ability to open up new forms of payment."
The company recently accepted Google Pay and Apple Pay, as well as BNPL's Afterpay option in Australia "which appeals to Generation Z."
See also: eBay debuts NFT services
In May 2021, eBay began offering non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the trading, music, entertainment and art categories, PYMNTS reported.
โSo even without announcing anything or doing anything, people started trading NFTs on one platform,โ Iannone said at the time. "It reminded me of many years ago when people were starting to sell cars when we didn't even have a vehicle business at the time."
And cryptocurrencies are just one of multiple initiatives eBay is considering as it seeks to attract Generation Z as a primary target audience, Iannone said.
PYMNTS spoke with Avritti Khandurie Mittal, eBay's vice president of products, payments and risk, earlier this year, where Mittal said that just over half of eBay's revenue is derived from international operations. As such, mobile international shopping and cross-border transactions should become as easy as domestic shopping.
