Walmart looks towards dipping its feet in the world of Metaverse

As more people become aware of new products, crypto is set to become a major payment method in the Metaverse

Published: Oct 19, 2022 05:52:03 PM IST

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Suresh Kumar, the global chief technology officer of Walmart, predicted that in the future, customers' ability to pay for digital and tangible things would be a 'major' disruption caused by crypto.

On October 17, Kumar talked about Walmart's opinions on digital assets and predicted that both physical and virtual goods would be purchased using crypto.

At the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, Kumar said:

"I think that there are three major areas of disruption. Crypto falls in sort of the middle of it." He also explained that 'the way in which customers are getting inspired and discovering products' is changing.

Additionally, Kumar projected that live broadcasting on the Metaverse and marketing through social media platforms would both be effective ways to reach a big part of consumers. Moreover, Bitcoin might play a significant role in that environment's payment system.

"When you specifically talk about crypto, it is going to be about the discovery of products, whether physical or virtual inside, either the Metaverse or upfront, and then how people transact," said Kumar.

This could explain Walmart Land, the retailer's most recent addition to the Roblox Metaverse, made available in late September. The company also provides virtual retail items called 'verch' for customers' avatars and hosts various virtual experiences there, including games, a DJ booth, and a Ferris wheel.

Crypto assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are not yet integrated into the Roblox metaverse. Walmart had made hints in January patent applications that it would eventually try to create a digital currency, tokens, and NFTs for the Metaverse. According to Kumar,

"We want to make sure that we make it as friction free for customers to be able to transact, and to be able to buy, and how they are able to derive value out of it. And that is where--I think a lot of the disruption is going to start happening in terms of different payment methods, different payment options."

The multinational retail behemoth has been working on adding support for crypto payments for a while, but so far, there have only been fanciful announcements, such as the dubious agreement with Litecoin that was made public in a questionable news release from September of last year.

Shashank is founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist.