By extending its marketplace to include digital collectibles, eBay is likely to join the non-fungible tokens (NFT) business. During an interview with CNBC, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said as much.

NFTs have already appeared on eBay, according to the CEO. “We’re looking into it and seeing what we can do to make it simple to enable on eBay.

When it comes to collectibles, “everything collectible has been on eBay for decades and will continue to be on eBay for the next few decades,” Iannone said.

eBay is one of the most popular sites for non-NFT trading cards. The company achieved a gross merchandising value (GMV) of over $1 billion in the collectibles segment alone in the first quarter of 2021, representing substantial growth over 2020.

However, revenue increased by 142 per cent in the year 2020. Given the rise in popularity of NFT collectibles in recent months, it was only a matter of time before eBay followed suit.

Market analyst Darren Rovell did not note the escalation of digital collectibles in an eBay news team update on 2021 Industry Predictions for Trading Cards.

Instead, nontraditional cards, retro basketball cards, and sports memorabilia, among other things, are expected to rise in popularity, according to the analyst.

Although not a perfect parallel, NFT collectibles with similar features, such as NBA Top Shot in basketball and Cryptopunks in nontraditional NFTs, have become very common.

Celebrities and brands transform iconic media and accessories into abstract material and marketing them as NFTs, close to how sports memorabilia is done.

It will be fascinating to see how eBay’s NFT offering influences demand and market for the product, as well as whether eBay expands beyond digital trading cards.

The key feature of eBay’s platform is that it is designed to reduce transaction friction. The company used to own PayPal for purchases, and it now accepts Apple Pay and other forms of payment. “We’ll keep looking at other alternatives, such as cryptocurrency,” Iannone said.

Getting digital collectibles on eBay, if done correctly, will greatly increase NFT accessibility.

Various digital collectibles markets and NFT auctions currently require consumers to purchase products in cryptocurrency, have a digital wallet to perform the transaction, or have the required platform to receive the NFT, with a few exceptions.

eBay may face difficulties in addressing these problems, but that is where the appeal of their offer lies. And, with the platform’s 187 million active buyers, if they succeed, it will be a watershed moment in the digital collectibles industry.

Meanwhile, when it joins the digital collectibles market, eBay will face stiff competition. The Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Trust has introduced a blockchain-based platform for selling digital art collectibles.

NFT platform SuperRare received funding from Mark Cuban, and NFT marketplace OpenSea recently raised $23 million.