- At the end of December of last year, Walmart presented a series of new brands which have the purpose of generating and marketing virtual properties.
- In October 2021, Walmart launched a pilot test in 200 of its stores, where it placed Bitcoin ATMs.
Since Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would change its name to Meta and start developing its own metaverse, various companies have decided to invest a good amount of money to develop a digital space where people can play, socialize and even work in the midst of development. of new economies, just as they would in the physical world.
Some of the companies that have opted to develop this fusion of realities that could change the future of humanity are Epic Games, Nvidia or Sony Music to name a few.
For its part, the consulting firm Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) has acquired digital plots in the metaverse of The Sandbox. Similarly, the Metaverse Group, a real estate company that has delved into the metaverse economy, recently purchased a plot of land in Decentraland for $2.43 million.
That said, a new player has considered entering this new virtual environment in which businesses look promising. According to some reports, the global retail company based in Bentonville, Arkansas, United States, Walmart will be looking to enter both the market for the now popular non-fungible tokens and the metaverse. Already A few years ago the form announced its intentions to create its own cryptocurrency and now it seems that it will arrive in the world of the metaverse.
Walmart registers crypto brands
In accordance with CNBC, Walmart filed with the Patent and Trademark Office of the United States on December 30 of last year, a series of new trademarks which have the clear purpose of generating and marketing virtual properties.
According to the news outlet, one of the patents notes that the retail firm added the probability of providing its users with non-fungible tokens just like a digital currency.
Regarding patents, the company declined to comment on specific filings of its trademarks.
“We always find ourselves testing different ideas all the time”, added the consortium. “In this process of trial and error, we managed to return to some ideas that are transformed into products or services available to our clients. Some others we try, we repeat and with it we learn”.
Although there is not much information, we could get an idea of what the Walmart meetup would be like, because a few days ago a video went viral on Twitter which was designed by a digital agency for Walmart in 2017, ahead of the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. ).
Walmart and digital environments
It should be noted that the clues for their entry into this digital environment began to become visible since August of last year, the date on which the company placed an ad on its profile LinkedIn, in which he required the services of an expert in digital assets.
Also, two months later, Walmart launched a pilot test in 200 of its establishments, in which it placed Bitcoin ATMs. According to reports, the company’s goal is to reach 7,800 more stores for now, thus having the objective of placing these machines in more than 8 thousand stores.
Regarding your interest in the digital asset market, Walmart noted in a statement that as a company, it is continually exploring how emerging technologies can shape its users’ shopping experiences in the future.
The success of NFTs
Regarding the growing market for NFTs, Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney pointed out that, since Facebook unveiled its company name for Meta, thus making clear its plans to embrace a business beyond social networks, interest in trademarks has also grown in many other companies. marketing possibilities offered by the metaverse.
These possibilities became more tangible, when the US financial multinational Morgan Stanley, noted that the metaverse could be an $8 trillion opportunity.
In this way, Meta only uncovered Pandora’s box, exposing a world of infinite possibilities so far, which will be taken by companies that take risks in the new commercial world.
In fact, some fashion houses in the United States such as Nike, Gucci, Gap, Under Armor and Adidas have already had a positive experience entering the NFT market.
In this regard, the editor-in-chief of the magazine The Block, Frank Chaparro, has pointed out that non-fungible tokens and the metaverse are at a stage comparable to the early years of e-commerce, in the 1990s, given that currently several companies are reluctant to enter a new era, simply because the new generates fear, and this fear sometimes prevents seeing beyond the obvious.
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