Popular bidding and auction website eBay has announced that it is “open” to the idea of utilizing bitcoin payments in the future. This does not mean that eBay has said yes right away. Rather, it is only considering the prospects of crypto payments for goods and services and will ultimately decide down the line.
eBay Says It Is “Open” to BTC Payments
Either way, considering how large eBay really is, this is a massive step forward, and bitcoin and its altcoin cousins are now even closer to potentially achieving mainstream and legitimate status. During a recent interview, Jamie Lannone – the CEO of eBay – explained:
You know one of the great things about our managed payments is we are expanding the types of payments that we take, so we now take Apple pay and Google pay, more choice for buyers. We will continue to look at more options like cryptocurrency. One of the great things about eBay is that when there is a new trend, it just shows up on eBay. That is what we are seeing in areas like NFT, which we are looking at how we can explore that better.
Initially, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were designed to be utilized as payment methods. They were created to officially knock credit cards and fiat currencies to the side one day, but unfortunately, this dream has not been realized in a timely manner largely due to the volatility of crypto assets. These currencies go up and down faster and more often than the sun, and to say that retailers and store owners are scared to accept crypto payments would be an understatement.
If you buy $50 worth of merchandise with bitcoin for example, and then the price of bitcoin goes down and turns that $50 into $30, you still walk away with everything while the store loses money.
However, we are now seeing a wide array of largescale companies – such as Tesla – begin to open the door to crypto payments for goods and services, and we can only hope that this trend continues so crypto can achieve the mainstream status it has always longed for.
Won’t Happen Right Away
A spokesperson for eBay made it clear that the plans to integrate crypto payments will not happen in the immediate future. Right now, executives are currently in the early stages of deciding, but that the public will be made aware should anything change. The spokesperson said:
We are always looking at the most relevant forms of payment and will continue to assess that going forward. We have no immediate plans, but [cryptocurrency] is something we are keeping an eye on… We are currently looking at a number of ways to innovate in this space and we are excited about the underlying capabilities and how blockchain-driven collectibles bring trust and authenticity, key components of a marketplace, to the digital space.
