eBay Expands Into Digital Collectibles, Buys NFT Marketplace ‘KnownOrigin’; Bitcoin Rises

Global e-commerce company eBay Inc. has acquired the UK-based non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, KnownOrigin, as part of its expansion into the digital collectibles industry.

The financial details of the deal weren’t made public though, according to various media reports.

A month prior to the acquisition, OneOf, a green NFT platform for communities across music, sports, and lifestyle, and eBay had announced a strategic agreement that aimed at a debut of a number of unique NFTs.

KnownOrigin, which was founded in 2018 in Manchester, enables artists and collectors to create, buy, and resell NFTs via Blockchain-supported transactions.

In other news, Bitget, a Singapore-based exchange for cryptocurrency derivatives, expects to treble its staff over the next six months, Coindesk reported, even as other cryptocurrency companies are massively reducing their staff strength.

The exchange plans to reach 1,000 employees by the end of the year, the company said in a press release on Thursday. It had 150 employees at the start of 2021 and had grown threefold by mid-2022, according to the press release.

While the price of bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has fallen more than 50 per cent since the beginning of the year, exchanges like Coinbase, Gemini, and Crypto.com are cutting staff as a result of the market turmoil.

Crypto Prices

The price of Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency market rose by 1.13 per cent in the last 24 hours, and it was trading at $20,562.04 at 6:30 pm IST. According to Coinmarketcap.com, its dominance in the crypto market is currently at 43.10 per cent, down by 0.25 per cent in the last 24 hours.

In the last 24 hours, Ethereum (ETH) was trading at $1,115.79, up by 3.14 per cent, while Binance Coin (BNB) was up by 5.23 per cent during the same time period, and it was trading at $225.73. Solana (SOL) was up by 4.51 per cent to $36.55, while Cardano (ADA) was up by 0.54 per cent to $0.472.

Meme Coins

Dogecoin was trading at $0.06373 at 6:30 pm IST, up by 2.11 per cent on Coinmarketcap.com. Its rival, Shiba Inu, was down by 0.99 per cent, and it was trading at $0.00001016. Samoyedcoin was up by 10.94 per cent, and it was trading at $0.005339, while Dogelon Mars was up by 3.82 per cent, and it was trading at $0.0000002655.

Overall Scenario

According to Coinmarketcap.com, the global crypto market cap was at $916.21 billion, an increase of 1.81 per cent in the last 24 hours, while the total crypto market volume was $66.55 billion, a decrease of 0.48 per cent.