The Wall Street Journal has just reported that a company that owns the NY Stock Exchange, just made an offer of $30 billion dollars for eBay, the company is the well known Intercontinental Exchange and located in Atlanta.

Intercontinental “may see an opening to apply its technological expertise connecting buyers and sellers to eBay’s core e-commerce site covering everything from electronics to collectibles,” reported WSJ.

ICE is owned by Jeffery Sprecher, husband of former Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler who had to quit her position after being appointed the new US Senator from Georgia.

This isn't the first time ICE has approached eBay, Intercontinental has tried before to offer eBay a takeover bid, and there have been no meetings scheduled to discuss the bid between the two companies. eBay shares, however, jumped 10% on the news while ICE’s were down 3%.

Intercontinental (ICE) is also the company behind crypto exchange Bakkt that enables institutions to buy, sell, store, and spend the world's largest digital asset by market cap Bitcoin.

eBay also sells virtual currency and mining contracts for Bitcoin. Users can buy items on the platform by using cryptocurrency as well but through third-party platforms.

Earlier last year, there were also rumors that the online auction site might start accepting Bitcoin and altcoins soon after photographs of marketing material from the Consensus conference in New York were revealed that said “Virtual Currency. It’s happening on eBay,”

However, eBay has been once again partnering with the payments platform that accepts cryptos on behalf of merchants and pays them in fiat.

Back in 2017 during the peak of Bitcoin price, senior vice president eBay Americas, Scott Cutler said in an interview that the company was “seriously considering” accepting the digital currency only to add that, “we’re not quite there yet.”

Now, this latest talk of ICE taking over eBay has the crypto community excited and hopeful yet again.

“WHOA. The owner of the New York Stock Exchange is thinking about taking over eBay at a valuation of more than $30 billion. This is the same company that realized the importance of Bitcoin enough to start Bakkt,” wrote Anthony Pompliano co-founder of Morgan Creek Capital. “Would be incredible to combine NYSE, Bakkt, & eBay under one roof.”

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