There was a promotional code circulating for 20% off anything on eBay last week. Yes you read that correctly - 20% off anything, from any seller (got myself a new 4k monitor). Purely speculating here, but perhaps people were gaming the system by listing marked-up gift cards and buying their own listings. During this promotion eBay was paying out sellers the full amount - which leads me to the following: why was eBay intentionally taking these losses? Perhaps a last-ditch effort to temporarily boost sales on paper?

It's not coincidence that they are replacing Paypal with Adyen - I think these are indications that there's some sort of merger or acquisition in the works...