eBay will allow NFT sales on its platform as it taps into the growing market for digital collectibles, report says

• eBay is entering the NFT market and will allow the sale of digital collectibles on its platform, Reuters reported Tuesday.
• The online ecommerce site said it will rollout tools and policies for users wanting to buy and sell NFT items.

EBay is tapping into the growing NFT market by allowing the sale of digital collectibles on its site, according to a Reuters report on Tuesday.

NFTs - digital representations of artworks and collectibles that exist on a blockchain ledger - have surged in popularity in 2021, highlighted in part by the $69 million sale by famed auction house Christie's of a digital collage by Mike Winkelmann, an artist known as Beeple.

EBay sellers who meet the online marketplace's standards will be provided with NFT inventory, the company told Reuters. It said its users can expect to see tools, programs and policies that will allow them to buy and sell NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, across a broad range of categories.

"In the coming months, eBay will add new capabilities that bring blockchain-driven collectibles to our platform," Jordan Sweetnam, general manager for eBay's North America market, told Reuters.

EBay's CEO Jamie Iannone told CNBC last week the company was looking into cryptocurrencies as an option for payments for its site.

NFTs are usually bought with ether, the token native to the Ethereum blockchain platform, or in dollars, and the blockchain holds a record of transactions, Reuters noted.