Walmart has responded to rumors circulating about the company’s plans to accept the cryptocurrency Litecoin through all digital stores from October 1 as “inauthentic.”
Prior to Walmart’s update, a legitimate press site had initially published the alleged messages on several major news websites and news agencies, including Globe Newswire, a service widely used to distribute press materials from various companies.
Above all doubt, the fake news about Walmart’s plans to accept Litecoin seems to be yet another “pump and dump” scheme where bad actors try to push up the hype around a coin in order to drive up their price while quickly selling their own shares before the market corrects itself.
While the fake release has since been deleted, including a tweet from a verified Litcoin Twitter account associated with the release, Globe Newswire said that “a fraudulent user account was used to issue an illegitimate press release.”
Although this has never happened before, the company noted that it will introduce “enhanced authentication” to prevent it from happening again.
For more information, read the original story on the BBC.