On Sunday, Walmart posted a job opening on its website that created a recent buzz as it was looking for a digital currency and cryptocurrency product lead. The posting said that the position would be based in its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. It has now joined a group of companies who are strategizing on ways to enter the digital currency space as it is growing exponentially.
The posting said that the candidate would serve as a subject matter expert and “identity customer needs and translate them into product requirements. Earlier, in July, Amazon had created a buzz as it said that it was planning to hire a lead for a similar position. In the beginning of the year Apple had posted a job opening for a manager to deal with alternate payments, who had experience in providers of fast payments and buy now, pay later as well as cryptocurrencies.
Walmart could be the next big company who is ready to join the crypto bandwagon in the U.S. PayPal has already allowed Venmo app customers to transact in digital currencies. Select customers can buy, sell, or hold digital currencies from the beginning of the year. It had expanded these operations last week.
Although Walmart has finally joined in recruiting for digital payments there was minimal change in its stock price, premarket trading at New York on Monday. However, cryptocurrency saw a small increase at 7.56 a.m. as its shares rose by 1.7 percent.
Earlier in 2019, the retail giant had filed a patent for a “digital asset.” It would reportedly be linked to generating a digital currency unit. This unit would be tied to a “regular currency” unit. Walmart also said in the same filing that the digital currency might be “pegged to the U.S. dollar.” The retailer also mentioned that it could be used only at select retailers or partners.
Research by the website PYMNTS has indicated that an estimated 18 percent of adult Americans have said that they might use cryptocurrency to buy groceries and household goods which are the more popular categories of items sold by Walmart and Amazon.
