Kroger Says It Is Not Accepting Bitcoin Cash

Despite what many people may have read, Kroger is not going to start accepting Bitcoin Cash.

The grocery chain made that very clear on Friday (Nov. 5), the same day that an apparently bogus announcement about its stores accepting the cryptocurrency appeared on PRNewswire, a service many businesses use to share official news.

As Bloomberg News reported, this was the second such scam in as many months.

“This communication was fraudulent and is unfounded and should be disregarded,” Kroger said.

The fake news release made its way to Kroger’s investors’ relations website, along with several media outlets. It also caused a brief 5% spike on Bitcoin Cash.

However, the news followed a 2.8% decline for Kroger to $42.31, the largest such drop on an S&P Index of consumer staple companies in the U.S.

Bitcoin Cash, an offshoot of bitcoin, has dropped by more than half in the last six months and fell less than 1% on Friday.

PRNewswire and its parent Cision say they take “the subject of misinformation seriously and have multiple security measures in place to authenticate information. We have withdrawn the fraudulent release and are urgently investigating the incident.” The companies say their investigation will include examining “any criminal activity associated with this matter.”

The Bloomberg story notes that although made-up press releases aren’t new, cryptocurrencies may offer new opportunities for scammers, as the trading on crypto networks is more or less untraceable, and traders are now used to giant price reactions to even sketchy announcements.

According to Bloomberg, a similar incident occurred in September involving a different store (Walmart), a different wire service (GlobeNewswire) and a different crypto (Litecoin). As with the Kroger/bitcoin scam, this fake news led to a quick 30% surge in Litecoin before Walmart called the story a hoax.

Read more: Walmart Rolls out First Installation of Bitcoin ATMs

And while Bitcoin Cash may not be accepted at Walmart yet, the chain does now offer bitcoin ATMs, as PYMNTS reported last month.

Walmart said it would bring the machines to 200 U.S. stores through a partnership with coin-cashing machine company Coinstar and crypto-cash exchange Coinme. The program is a pilot, part of a larger plan to install 8,000 of the ATMs.