{"id":54910,"date":"2019-08-03T11:34:26","date_gmt":"2019-08-03T09:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/?p=54910"},"modified":"2019-08-03T13:40:29","modified_gmt":"2019-08-03T11:40:29","slug":"walmart-taking-on-facebook-with-its-own-cryptocurrency-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/walmart-taking-on-facebook-with-its-own-cryptocurrency-ambitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Taking On Facebook With Its Own Cryptocurrency Ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Facebook announced that it was delving into the cryptocurrency world with its own lofty ambitions everyone paid attention. US regulators were not impressed and it is likely any other influential corporation seeking to launch its own currency could be next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walmart on The Cryptocurrency Train<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

According to reports<\/a>\nUS retail giant Walmart has filed patents for its own dollar backed stable\ncoin, similar to Facebook\u2019s Libra. However, the road ahead will not be an easy\none and the firm is likely to face similar regulatory pressure and backlash\nthat has plagued Facebook in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook attempted to appear open with its ambitions by\nforming a consortium of companies to contribute to the project but Walmart<\/a> may well take a\ndifferent approach. It could launch the cryptocurrency to a massive market of\nover 11,000 hypermarkets and department stores located in 27 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Walmart Coin was created by Robert Cantrell, David\nNelms, John O\u2019Brien, and Brian McHale. It will operate as a stablecoin, similar\nto Libra, the patent filing elaborated;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe digital currency may be pegged to the US dollar and available for use only at selected retailers or partners. In other embodiments, the digital currency is available for use anywhere. The digital currency can provide a fee-free, or fee-minimal place to store wealth that can be spent, for example, at retailers and, if needed, easily converted to cash,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The retail giant has already developed its own Walmart Pay\napp which blocks rival services such as Apple Pay. This is an indication that\nthe firm is likely to proceed solo, especially in light of the lambasting that\nLibra has taken since its announcement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walmart has already eyed the banking sector with an attempt\nto become an industrial loan company (ILC) a few years ago. The notion of a\nWalmart Bank clearly riled politicians and regulators who rejected the plans.\nFollowing the backlash the company shied away from its retail banking ambitions\nto focus solely on payment processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest cryptocurrency patent filing is another attempt to\nenter the finance sector. It could also offer greater incentives to users than\nLibra, which naturally will be heavily monitored by Zuckerberg and co. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe savings can be greater when the customer buys goods that are on their shopping history and are therefore predicted,\u201d the filing added. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Just like Libra, Walmart Coin will have a central authority\nand therefore will be no threat whatsoever to Bitcoin<\/a>\nand other decentralized cryptocurrencies. With a slew of existing stablecoins\nalready doing the job, Facebook and Walmart are bringing nothing new to the\ntable. The moves appear to be motivated by locking more customers into their\nown ecosystems, as has been a common theme for most corporate monopolies. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Facebook announced that it was delving into the cryptocurrency world with its own lofty ambitions everyone paid attention. US regulators were not impressed and it is likely any other influential corporation seeking to launch its own currency could be next. Walmart on The Cryptocurrency Train According to reports US retail giant Walmart has filed patents for its own dollar backed stable coin, similar to Facebook\u2019s Libra. However, the road ahead will not be an easy one and the firm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":54912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[83,1032,3707,1171,7130],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54910"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.ethereumworldnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}