Is eBay ready to accept crypto payments?
According to Coinbase, the online marketplace displayed a “digital wallet” slide during its Investor Day presentation Thursday (March 10), although the company has not yet made any definitive announcement.
Speculation that eBay might start taking cryptocurrency payments began circulating late last month, when CEO Jamie Iannone said in an interview that the company was “going to go deeper on all of these things, payments, advertising, our focus categories” on March 10.
But aside from saying it would have a digital wallet ready for use sometime in the second quarter, eBay made no specific announcement about cryptocurrency during the presentation, Coinbase said.
Read more: eBay Could Announce Decision on Crypto Payments March 10
Iannone did say the company is “continuing to look at new forms of payment to add now that we’ve got the rollout of global payments complete.”
Iannone said last month that eBay was processing $85 billion in payments 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 the BNPL option Afterpay in Australia “that appeals to Gen Z.”
See also: eBay Debuts NFT Services
In May of 2021, eBay began making non-fungible tokens (NFTs) available under the categories of trading cards, music, entertainment and art, PYMNTS reported.
“So even without announcing anything or doing anything, people started trading NFT on a platform,” Iannone said at the time. “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.”
And crypto is just one of multiple initiatives eBay is considering as it looks to attract Gen Z as a major audience target, Iannone said.
PYMNTS spoke to Avritti Khandurie Mittal, eBay’s vice president of products, payment and risk, earlier this year, where Mittal said just over half of eBay’s revenue is derived from international operations. As such, mobile international shopping and cross-border transactions need to become as easy as domestic shopping.
