eBay has made considerable headway into the Web3 space since it first started selling NFTs on its site in March 2021. In May 2022, the e-commerce giant launched its own NFT collection. Today, June 22, the company announced that it has officially acquired KnownOrigin — an NFT marketplace that has generated over $7 million in trading volume since its launch in late 2018.
The news was broken via the marketplace’s official Twitter account, which made the announcement in a series of tweets earlier today at 8:41 a.m. EDT.
To close the thread, the marketplace harkened back to its original creator-first vision, calling this acquisition “the start of a new chapter in the KnownOrigin story.” Together, the two parties hope to “bring even more creators and collectors into the space,” and are looking forward to the opportunity to “educate and inspire the next million creators.”
eBay CEO Jamie Iannone believes this acquisition — along with the rest of its moves placing itself firmly within the wider NFT landscape — holds true to the site’s original goals from when it first launched into public consciousness during the dot com bubble of the late 90s. Speaking on the acquisition, Iannone stated in a press release that “eBay is the first stop for people across the globe who are searching for that perfect, hard-to-find, or unique addition to their collection and, with this acquisition, we will remain a leading site as our community is increasingly adding digital collectibles.”
With this acquisition, eBay is showing great commitment to its strategy to integrate NFTs into its set of flagship services despite the current bear market. They’re not alone in this regard, either. Gaming retailer GameStop has its own NFT marketplace in the works (complete with its own proprietary wallets) and Mark Zuckerberg has recently shared NFT roadmaps for Facebook and Instagram.
