Walmart’s CTO, Suresh Kumar, says crypto will play a significant role in payments throughout the metaverse and social media, as these platforms will play a significant role in how consumers learn about new products.
Suresh Kumar, the global chief technology officer (CTO) of Walmart, predicts that in the future, customers will use cryptocurrencies to pay for both digital and tangible goods, making this a “major” area of disruption.
On October 17, Kumar discussed Walmart’s views on digital assets while stating that “crypto will become an integral component of how people transact” for both physical and virtual items. Kumar was speaking at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit.
He said, “I think that there are three major areas of disruption. Crypto falls in sort of the middle of it,” adding that “the way in which customers are getting inspired and discovering products is changing.”
Additionally, Kumar predicted that a sizeable portion of consumers would be reached by marketing via social media platforms like Facebook Live and the Metaverse, and that cryptocurrency would play a large role as a form of payment there.
This could account for Walmart’s latest entry into the Roblox Metaverse, Walmart Land, which was released in late September.
The company also provides virtual retail items called “verch” for customers’ avatars in addition to hosting a variety of virtual experiences there, including games, a DJ booth, and a Ferris wheel.
However, Walmart has already indicated in patent papers from January that it may try to create digital currencies, tokens, and NFTs in the metaverse sector at some point in the future. At current time, NFTs and crypto are not integrated with the Roblox metaverse.
The global retail behemoth has reportedly been working on implementing support for cryptocurrency payments for some time. But yet, there have only been false alarms, like the fraudulent agreement with Litecoin (LTC) that was revealed via a dubious news release from September of last year.
As of October 2021, there were approximately 200 Bitcoin (BTC) ATMs placed at Walmart stores across the United States, with plans to increase that number to 8,000 soon.
