eBay has announced it is considering the possibility of accepting cryptocurrency as a means of payment in future.

The e-commerce giant is also looking at ways to introduce non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its platform.

A rising number of firms have recently started to accept cryptocurrencies as payment. In April PayPal launched “Checkout with Crypto,” allowing U.S. users to pay with Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, Reuters reports.

In addition, Coinbase revealed users could make payments on the exchange using PayPal.

According to PayPal CEO, Dan Schulman, “demand on the crypto side has been multiple-fold to what we initially expected.” 
In addition, electric car manufacturer Tesla is already accepting Bitcoin as payment.

An eBay statement said: "We are always looking at the most relevant forms of payment and will continue to assess that going forward. We have no immediate plans, but it (cryptocurrency) is something we are keeping an eye on.”

In an interview with CNBC, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone said: “When there’s a new trend it just shows up on eBay. That’s what we’re seeing in areas like NFT and we’re looking at how we can explore that better.”

NFTs have soared in popularity this year, particularly digital art. Last month Christie’s auction house sold “Everydays – The First 5000 Days,” a digital artwork in JPEG form by an artist known as Beeple, for $69.3 million – the third most expensive artwork ever sold by a living artist.

"We're exploring opportunities on how we can enable it (NFTs) on eBay in an easy way," Iannone told CNBC.

“Everything that’s collectible has been on eBay for decades and will continue to be for the next few decades.”