EBay May Create a Bitcoin Rival

January 3, 2014 By: Kevin Xu

EBay may be on track to create its own virtual currency in the vein of bitcoin.

PayPal filed a patent application in June 2012 describing a virtual token that could be sent to others as gifts and used to purchase items through a payment provider.

The application was published on December 19, 2013, and sounds almost identical to the current functionality of bitcoin.

This includes enabling the token to be used online as an option during checkout, physically in stores through POS and mobile validation by utilizing the phone number as a PIN.

The most important part of the application is the explicit statement that these tokens are not limited to gifting, which opens the door to be used as a virtual currency

According to the application, “The token does not have to be a gift. For example, the token can be paid for by the recipient… Generally, the token may be described as a payment token that allows the recipient to use the token to make a payment using the services of the payment provider issuing the token on behalf of the user.”

Earlier in December, PayPal President, David Marcus, expressed that “I really like Bitcoin. I own bitcoins.” However, he doesn’t see it as a proper currency yet due to its high risk, volatility, and the lack of merchant acceptance…

Which are all issues that can be solved if eBay takes this to market, but would most likely not offer bitcoin’s hallmarks of decentralization and potential for anonymity.