eBay Goes In on NFTs, Becoming First Top 10 E-Commerce Player To Do So

If you haven’t heard of NFTs, you’ve been living under a rock. This has been the craze of 2021, alongside cryptocurrency.

UM…WHAT’S AN NFT?

An NFT which stands for a non-fungible token is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files.

Nonfungible tokens prove ownership of a digital item – image, sound file or text – in the same way that people own crypto coins. Unlike crypto coins, which are identical and worth the same, NFTs are unique.

NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain so they are individual tokens with extra information stored in them. That extra information is the important part, which allows them to take the form of art, music, video (and so on), in the form of JPGS, MP3s, videos, GIFs and more.

WHY IS EBAY GOING IN ON NFT’S AND WHY IT’S A SMART PLAY

Look at this stat. More than $2 billion was spent on non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, during the first quarter of 2021 — representing an increase of about 2,100% from Q4 2020 — according to a report NonFungible.com.

With the growing hype and market, eBay which has been left behind in the past, takes no chance here, and smart not to do so.

eBay not only sees value in attracting a new consumer base, although it’s been THE market place for selling collectible cards, but these are big fee’s for the market place we are talking about which can be a great revenue booster.

According to rankings on OpenSea, the “average” price of an NFT sold on SuperRare is 2.15 ether or $5,800; the “average” price on MakersPlace is . 87 ether or $2,400; and the “average” on Foundation is 1.27 ether or $3,500.

This also makes eBay the first retailer in the top 10 to have an NFT market offering.

WHO COMPETES IN THIS MARKET?

1. OpenSea – Ethereum & Polygon – Putting NFTs up for sale without paying for minting
2. Rarible – Ethereum – Create your own NFT collection
3. Atomic Hub – Wax – Free to create, mint and sell anything on the Wax blockchain
4. Foundation – Ethereum – Artwork auctions for invited artists only
5. SuperRare – Ethereum – The most elite curated NFT art platform by reputation. 
6. The Sandbox Marketplace – Ethereum – Assets to collect or use in The Sandbox
7. Known Origin – Ethereum – One of the oldest NFT art marketplaces on the blockchain
8. NFT Showroom – Hive – A community-driven NFT marketplace on Hive blockchain
9. VIV3 – Flow – An NFT marketplace that’s still under heavy development
10. Arkane Market – Polygon – A simple user interface, and friendly user experience. 
11. BakerySwap – BSC – When DeFi protocols dip their toes in the world of NFTs
12. TreasureLand – BSC – Probably the premier NFT marketplace on BSC
13. Solible – Solana – An NFT marketplace that’s still under development
14. GhostMarket – Phantasma – One of the dark-horses among NFT marketplaces
15. HicetNunc – Tezos – Experimental marketplace for NFT on Tezos blockchain