key takeaways
- eBay today announced that it has acquired NoneOrigin, a Manchester-based NFT marketplace for visual arts.
- The deal will see eBay employ the co-founders and team of KnownOrigin and acquire its intellectual property.
- The company is gradually integrating NFTs since May 2021; Last month, it introduced its collection on Polygon.
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Web commerce giant eBay has acquired KnownOrigin, a marketplace for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
eBay Closed NonOrigin Deals Today
In a press release today, eBay said it has acquired KnownOrigin. It announced that it has closed the deal today for an undisclosed amount.
KnownOrigin was founded in Manchester in April 2018 to support visual arts NFTs. According to OpenSea, there are 80,600 items in the collection and it has grown to 8,300 ETH ($8.8 million). The items in the collection are owned by 13,400 individuals.
eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said in a statement that eBay is a “first stop” for e-commerce. He added that today’s acquisition of KnownOrigin will allow it to “remain a leading site as our community increasingly adds digital collectibles.”
KnownOrigin co-founder David Moore cited “the reach and experience of eBay” as the reason his company struck the deal. Moore said the collaboration will allow it to “attract a new wave of NFT creators and collectors.”
report from techcrunch The suggestion is that KnownOrigins’ co-founders—Andy Gray, David Moore, and James Morgan—will all join eBay. The terms of the deal reportedly cover the company’s intellectual property and its entire team.
Other sites supporting NFT
E-commerce sites seem to be a natural fit for managing non-fungible token sales, and many companies within the industry are exploring the opportunity.
eBay has been slowly integrating blockchain for over a year. The firm announced that it would launch NFT integration in May 2021 and announced a digital wallet in March 2022. It also launched its own sports NFT collection on Polygon last month.
Also today, eBay competitor Shopify revealed that it will be offering an NFT-gated storefront accessible only to certain token holders. Shopify first announced NFT support in July 2021.
Alipay, an affiliate of Alibaba, began working with NFTs in 2021. Amazon CEO Andy Jesse hinted at a sale of NFTs this April.
In addition to e-commerce, Uniswap has just announced that it will acquire NFT marketplace Genie.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this article owns BTC, ETH and other cryptocurrencies.
