Three months after dipping its toe in the cryptocurrency water with a 200-machine bitcoin ATM trial, Walmart has revealed a far deeper interest in crypto than previously imagined.
In a series of seven trademark and patent filings made Dec. 30, Walmart showed that it is considering launching its own, in-house cryptocurrency, as well as a line of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) usable in a metaverse.
The world’s largest retailer outlined its ambitions — or at least its serious considerations — to create “financial services, namely, providing a virtual currency for use by members of an online community via a global computer network,” as well as financial exchange and transactions using “virtual currency, in the field of nonfungible tokens (NFTs).”
The filings are both very broad and lacking in detail, making it hard to say for certain what kind of cryptocurrency Walmart is considering, but one of the many possibilities mentioned is “cryptocurrency payment processing.”
If a new focus on the metaverse and an excursion into an in-house payments cryptocurrency sounds familiar, that’s because it’s more or less what Facebook has been working on.
The launch of a new stablecoin usable on its network was Facebook’s goal with the Libra stablecoin — since renamed Diem — although it’s recently turned to a smaller, existing competitor, Paxos. The USDP stablecoin will be turned into a currency usable by WhatsApp, the 2 billion-user messaging service owned by Meta — the new name CEO Mark Zuckerberg selected to replace Facebook.
That was when he announced that the metaverse was the future of the world’s largest social media firm.
Walmart certainly has the financial wherewithal to build its own metaverse in competition with Facebook as well as competitors like Decentraland and Fortnite, which is in the process of expanding from a massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming world to a wider metaverse that would include the existing MMO game. Or it could simply take over commerce in whichever metaverse wins.
Why would it? Well, for one thing, if the metaverse is really the next big thing people like Zuckerberg think it will be, it could unlock an entirely new kind of online commerce in an interactive and immersive 3D setting. Which is to say, one where Walmart isn’t being beaten by Amazon. That’s certainly worth looking into.
A Walmart Coin?
One likely use of a Walmart-issued digital asset is as a private currency usable only within Walmart’s retail, online and potentially in-metaverse settings.
That might be something like a stablecoin, except it would maintain its value by being backed by Walmart’s promise to sell goods for it at a one-to-one exchange rate with the dollar. Traditional stablecoins maintain their dollar peg by holding a reserve of dollars and highly liquid investments with the promise that a digital asset can redeem their stablecoin for fiat currency.
That said, cryptocurrency payment processing was a term used in a list that included providing custody services, cryptocurrency trading services, cryptocurrency exchange services, and liquidity for “currency exchange services in connection with digital currencies and assets, cryptocurrencies, virtual currency and blockchain-based assets.”
That covers anything from a way to accept public cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and dogecoin at the point of sale (POS) or in exchange for an in-house Walmart coin to a full-on cryptocurrency exchange competing with the likes of Coinbase and Binance US.
Walmart’s bitcoin ATM pilot, launched with Coinstar and bitcoin trading app Coinme, is looking to grow to 8,000 kiosks, the company said in October.
Read more: Walmart Rolls out First Installation of Bitcoin ATMs
Walmart Land?
As for the NFTs, one of the filings mentioned “on-line retail store services featuring virtual merchandise” in several dozen categories ranging from appliances and furniture to apparel, jewelry and pet products.
Without speaking to the patent filings directly, a Walmart spokesperson told CNBC that the company is “continuously exploring how emerging technologies may shape future shopping experiences.”
On the other hand, “virtual merchandise” certainly suggests a metaverse, in which avatars — basically MMO video game-style characters that can be used to interact in the virtual landscape of a metaverse — buy and use NFT “goods.” So, jewelry, for example, could be something used to add to a character’s individuality. It’s a more immersive and interactive version of the Walmart.com storefront.
See also: Experiential Marketing Meets Social Commerce in the Metaverse
That’s something Amazon doesn’t have. Either way, Walmart is playing it close to the chest.
“We are testing new ideas all the time,” the spokesperson told CNBC. “Some ideas become products or services that make it to customers. And some we test, iterate, and learn from.”
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