Crypto is going to play a vital role in customer experience and will have a disruptive effect on payment methods, according to Suresh Kumar, Walmart's Global Chief Technology Officer. Speaking at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, Kumar indicated the three areas of disruption that will shape the shopping habits in the near future. One of them is the metaverse, and another one live streams, with crypto falling "in the middle of it."
"The way in which customers are getting inspired and discovering products, that is changing. Part of that is going to happen in the metaverse, part of that is going to happen on live streams, inside your social media app," he said.
Kumar hinted that Walmart is not going to lag and plans to adjust to the changing market landscape. "Crypto will become an important part of how customers transact. We want to make sure we want to make it friction free for customers to be able to transact and to be able to buy and to derive value out of it," he declared.
The company signaled its crypto ambitions already in December 2021 when it filed for seven trademark applications related to the metaverse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and cryptocurrencies.
Last month, Walmart entered the metaverse, launching Walmart Land and Walmart's Universe of Play in Roblox, enabling users to "check out the Walmart' isles' to collect verch, catch top music artists and unlock exclusive interactive content."
