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Word started circulating just a couple of days ago that one of the world’s largest eCommerce stores, eBay, would begin to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment. There were several indications that were made available publicly to support the rumor, but none of them were offered from eBay’s official channels. It now appears that the rumors are nothing more, and eBay is not ready to make the jump into the digital future. That’s a shame for the crypto community and the merchant’s 180 million active buyers.
Marketing material surfaced that reportedly came from eBay itself. The material included language such as “Virtual Currency. It’s happening on eBay,” and there have also been snapshots from other eBay-related activities that reportedly showed crypto payments were right around the corner.
A company spokesperson buried the rumors this past Monday. The individual succinctly stated, “Cryptocurrency is not accepted as a form of payment on the eBay platform, nor is it part of our payments strategy.”
However, KoinStreet co-founder Roshan Mirajkar believes that eBay will have to change its tune sooner or later. When the subject of crypto payments and eBay came up during the recent Consensus 2019 in New York, he stated, “doing more of a marketing effort and not being more direct about it. It’s gotten too large for them to ignore yet I don’t think they know the right path forward.”
TD Ameritrade is another company that was rumored to be considering a jump into the crypto pool. That rumor surfaced after a single tweet was misinterpreted, but the company’s head of digital assets, Sunayna Tuteja, states, “Currently we’re not. We have what we call paperMoney, which is what our clients can try for trading strategies. It was a simulation. So there was no actual execution.” “paperMoney” allows customers and non-customers to practice trading without putting any money on the line.
TD Ameritrade was recently involved in the testing of a new crypto trading platform being introduced by ErisX. However, this, stresses the company, is not an indication that it is ready to launch its own crypto solution or mainstream products.
eBay and Td Ameritrade may not yet be ready to embrace crypto, but a retail explosion is about to take place. Spedn, offered by Gemini-backed Flexa, is a crypto payments solution that is being testing in Whole Foods, Baskin Robbins, Crate and Barrel and many others, and which could soon see crypto being accepted directly alongside Samsung Pay and Apple Pay.
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
