EBay Snaps Up NFT Marketplace KnownOrigin

EBay and KnownOrigin announced in a joint statement today that the e-commerce giant has acquired the NFT marketplace for an undisclosed sum.

CEO Jamie Iannone said last year that his company was exploring crypto payments and looking at NFTs, which became available on eBay in May 2021.

The move comes among a number of NFT marketplace acquisitions. Just yesterday, Uniswap Labs, the company behind decentralized exchange Uniswap, said it was acquiring NFT aggregation platform Genie. And in April, OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, acquired NFT aggregator Gem.

An NFT (non-fungible token) is a unique token linked to digital or physical content, providing proof of ownership. They have exploded in the art and music world.

KnownOrigin is a UK-based platform that allows for the buying and selling of NFT artwork. It runs on the Ethereum blockchain and allows artists to mint NFTs too.

“KnownOrigin has built up an impressive, passionate and loyal group of artists and collectors making them a perfect addition to our community of sellers and buyers,” Iannone said in the statement.

KnownOrigin co-founder David Moore added that the eBay partnership would help “attract a new wave of NFT creators and collectors.”

Founded in 2018, KnownOrigin is one of the first NFT marketplaces, and has generated $7.8 million in sales since its launch, according to DappRadar data. NFT sales took a hit in 2022 as market conditioned worsened, but Q1 trading still topped $12 billion.