Immediately after the news of the partnership between Walmart and Litecoin went live, LTC saw a 20 percent increase in its price.
Earlier today, a press release emerged that a leading US retailer and grocer Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) announced a partnership with Litecoin. However, according to CNBC, this is false.
The press release had revealed that the e-commerce company had enabled this so as to help shoppers around the globe buy and make payments seamlessly using the cryptocurrency Litecoin.
Immediately after the news of the partnership between both parties went live, the crypto asset saw a 20 percent increase in its price. However, the price came tumbling by over 2 percent as of press time.
Per CNBC, a Walmart spokesperson confirmed that the press release was not authentic. Interestingly, a number of notable media houses like Reuters and others had gone to the press with the earlier fake report.
The fake press release, which has now been taken down, had cited LTC’s super low fees and fast transaction times as why the eCommerce store was pitching its intent with it.
Twitter Reaction to Walmart and Litecoin Fake News
Already, there is a litany of reactions trailing the fake press release about Walmart supporting Litecoin payment.
One of the reactions is from Sam Reynolds, a reporter at BlockWork, who tweeted that the “Walmart-Litecoin story is a 10/10 of a pump and dump scheme.” Another reaction was from @Dogetoshi who first drew attention to the fact that the website attached to the press release did not link to any official website. Dogetoshi also revealed that the email domain attached to the release was just registered last month.
On the other hand, Frankie Chaparro, the Director of news at The Block posited that the “pump and dump scheme” could draw reactions from the authorities. According to him, he wrote that “Wouldn’t be surprised if this pump and dump scheme – which tricked basically everyone – draws the further ire of Gary Gensler and co.”
Other reactions on Twitter also state how the move could be a classical case of pump and dump and called on crypto players to pay attention to a news website with authorities.
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