eBay acquires established NFT marketplace KnownOrigin

eBay made its biggest move yet into the world of digital collectibles with news today that the company acquired NFT marketplace KnownOrigin. The online auction company is keeping its mouth shut about the deal’s value, but confirmed in the press release that the deal has ended on 21 June.

“This partnership will help us attract a new wave of NFT creators and collectors,” said KnownOrigin co-founder David Moore.

KnownOrigin describes itself as “one of the world’s first and largest NFT marketplaces,” and it currently ranks #12 in all-time trading volume for Ethereum-backed NFTs at $7.8 million, according to DappRadar. Higher-ranked, more popular marketplaces include OpenSea (No. 1) with an all-time trading value of $30.43 billion and Decentraland (No. 8) at $155.66 million.

eBay began allowing NFT sales on its site last year. With the KnownOrigin acquisition, eBay has the ability to control a proper digital marketplace where NFT transactions can be both monitored and controlled – not just offered with the hope that the seller transfers an NFT to the buyer’s wallet in the correct manner.

Currently, approved sellers on eBay can list NFTs in the same format as a physical item, and many listings today share the details of the NFT zip code and which digital wallet the buyer needs to receive the transfer after the sale. eBay’s current NFT selling method also comes with some caveats, such as a $10,000 maximum, a buy-it-now model (no bidding or best offer), and a requirement that the buyer and seller be in the same country. NFTs cannot be sold together with a physical commodity either.

The final caveat of not being able to link a physical item to an NFT sale is most intriguing, as earlier this month eBay opened a new real-world vault to protect physical collectibles, with the ability to allow instant digital sales of the items without ever to send them out. eBay declined to comment on whether there will be any integration between physical vault collectibles and NFTs in the future.

eBay has been pushing its collectibles business hard over the past year, expanding its guarantee of authenticity to ensure trading cards sold on eBay aren’t fake, and launching auctions to showcase even more collectibles. Sales of collectibles are at an all-time high coming out of the pandemic, and eBay is taking the opportunity to cover both digital and physical assets with the KnownOrigin acquisition and eBay Vault – which at the time of writing is still not a place NFTs are eligible to be stored.