Walmart is looking into opening their own Libra-like digital currency. The patent that they have filed with the U.S Patent and Trademark Office indicates that they are looking to do so. The Patent agency’s official website said that Walmart would be, “generating one digital currency unit by tying the one digital currency unit to regular currency.” What it means is that the new coin would be stable.
Using this new currency Walmart wants to extend their inclusion circle as they plan to also include citizens with low income, and they would like to solve their credit problems as much as possible.
“For example, many people are from low-income households where credit can be a problem and carrying cash can be problematic. Keeping and accessing cash can be expensive for low-income households simply because those customers may live week to week and may have little cash in their bank accounts – if they have bank accounts.” Walmart’s goal sounds a lot like Facebook’s Libra that was announced to accommodate the unbanked transactions and to make sure that all transactions are settled with very little charges.
However, for this Facebook had received a lot of backlashes. David Marcus, the head of the Libra project was subjected to a lot of questioning regarding Libra, and their highly controversial privacy issues. Facebook in its Q2 report it has mentioned that the Project Libra did not see the light of day and was killed off. Now that Walmart has applied to do the same there is a great chance that Walmart too would be faced with criticism and backlash.
It should be mentioned that Walmart has about 54 different patents all associated with blockchain technology. Walmart is hopeful that by the end of 2020, at least half of all packaged meat sold by the firm will be traceable on blockchain.
