America’s ubiquitous mass retailer is looking for a cryptocurrency wizard.
According to reporting by Marie Huillet at Cointelegraph, the goal of this headhunting is to find someone who can “has a track record in leading and scaling business” along with some acumen in the realm of digital assets and blockchain technology.
Based in Bentonville, Arkansas, this top department director will be responsible for tasks like these as described by Huillet:
- “involv(ing) identifying customer needs and translating them into product requirements
- forging partnerships with product, technology and design leaders
- committing to a crypto product roadmap and driving the project’s execution
- identifying crypto-related investment opportunities and partnerships”
Walmart isn’t really a party one would associate with high-tech endeavors;
in describing why the company would pivot this way, Huillet describes a prior effort to develop Hazel, a mobile “super-app” which, although not embracing some aspects of decentralized finance, did set the stage for broader embraces of new financial technology.
“Among North American megafirms, Walmart is not alone in seeking to integrate digital currency into its e-commerce and wider business strategy,” Huillet adds. “This February, Amazon posted a job listing for a leader to oversee a new digital currency service in Mexico that would allow users to spend digital currency while shopping.”
Last week, we were reporting on similar recruiting efforts by Israel’s espionage agency, the Mossad.
What these disparate reports show is a broader pattern of institutional investment that will leave cryptocurrency bears and virulent critics displeased.
There is still a lot of broader skepticism on the street regarding items like Bitcoin and Ethereum. But while the common citizen might not be extremely excited about defi or cryptocurrency, companies and government offices are quietly taking note and moving toward investment in new types of digital money and related resources. Note that as you put together your investment portfolio for the future.