Price of Litecoin Spikes on Fake Walmart Press Release
The fake news release caused the price of litecoin to spike almost 30% on Monday morning before returning to previous levels.
Sep 13, 2021 at 6:40 p.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/4ESY3IS2GFDMJJDLSXTR6TVPQI.jpg)
UPDATE (Sept. 13, 14:22 UTC): An earlier version of this article took the alleged Walmart press release at face value. The story has been rewritten to reflect that the document was inauthentic and includes market reaction.
The price of litecoin surged Monday morning after a fake press announcement was released saying retail giant Walmart intended to offer its customers the option to make payments in crypto via a new partnership with the Litecoin Foundation. Walmart confirmed, however, that the press release was fake, saying that “Walmart had no knowledge of the press release issued by GlobeNewswire, and it is incorrect.”
- The news initially caused the price of litecoin to soar almost 30% from $175.45 to $225.75, and the price of bitcoin to rise 1.8% to $45,540. Litecoin’s price has since fallen back to $178, while the price of bitcoin has dropped to $44,498.
- The press release claimed that all of Walmart’s e-commerce stores would have a “Pay with Litecoin Option,” starting Oct. 1.
- The Litecoin Foundation initially re-tweeted the fake release, but then deleted the tweet.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.
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