The cryptocurrency Litecoin went through a 20% gain recently after a press release that appeared to announce it with Walmart. However, the crypto now is tumbling after it was announced by Walmart that the press release that appeared to come from Walmart was not authentic.
A spokesman for Walmart, Randy Hargrove, confirmed that the press release was fake and said that Walmart has not yet investigated how the false release went public, but plans to soon by contacting GlobeNewswire, the media platform which sent out the release.
“Walmart had no knowledge of the press release issued by GlobeNewswire and there is no truth to it. Walmart has no relationship with litecoin,” Hargrove told the news organization Reuters.
Investors and traders were not the only people confused by this press release. Many major financial media outlets, including CNBC, set official headlines about a partnership between Walmart and Litecoin as a result of the false release.
After no response to the event initially, The Securities and Exchange Commission will likely be investigating the matter shortly. The specifics of the fake press release included that Walmart would begin rolling out a crypto infrastructure for its customers to use, with Litecoin being the first form of crypto that would be accepted by the company.
However, one of the red flags of the release was that it mentioned a website that was not currently active in the email sent around disguised as an official press release from Walmart. Naturally, this raised suspicions.