Although cryptocurrencies are increasingly accepted across the world, several of the most popular e-commerce platforms have still not done so. Almost no one accepts cryptocurrency as a form of payment, therefore the first to do so would undoubtedly become the subject of conversation in the cryptocurrency community.

eBay is considering adding cryptocurrencies as a payment method. The company is planning to make an announcement about this on March 10th.

“We’re just completing our transition to manage payments where we’re now managing $85 billion of volume on our platform directly,” Iannone said in a statement to The Street. “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,” Iannone continued.

“And so we continue to evaluate other forms of payments that we should take on the platform. We don’t currently accept cryptocurrency on the platform.”

Iannone insists that eBay should focus on Gen-Z consumers. One way that eBay is doing this is by focusing on transactions related to sneakers, which is a growth category for the company.

With sneakers, “we’re appealing to the younger generation, where they’re coming in selling their sneakers, becoming a collectible collector on the platform, and they’re building new marketing capabilities,” Iannone argued.

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

He noticed that people were buying and selling non-fungible tokens on eBay, even though the company hadn’t announced anything about it.

“We did change our policies last year so that you could trade NFT on the platform and essentially, you know, eBay is a place where people have something to sell and people have something by show up.”

“So even without announcing anything or doing anything, people started trading NFT on a platform,” Iannone continued. “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].”

And he concluded by stating that: “eBay will be the place where people trade goods, whether they be physical or digital. So over time, you know, we want this to be the marketplace for sustainability.”

NFTs are digital assets that can be bought and sold on blockchain, allowing for the creation of what’s known as a Crypto Collectibles Universe. They may represent certificates for physical products in various cases.

According to blockchain analytics firm DappRadar, the NFT market exploded in 2021, generating more than $23 billion in trade volume last year. The number was lower than $100 million the previous year.