Wal-Mart confirms that someone spoofed the newswire
This is the spoof of the decade.
The Litecoin/Walmart release was through Globalnewswire, which is one of the largest PR newswires in the world and it was tweeted out by Litecoin's verified account.
Some sleuths quickly noted that Walmart itself hadn't tweeted about it that someone could gotten around the controls at Globalnewswire, which would be a major embarrassment for the firm.
Eventually, Litecoin's official twitter account deleted the tweet.
This would be the mother of all embarrassments for news agencies but you can't really blame them for thinking it was real since the company itself tweeted the press release, which is from Globalnewswire, which is one of the world's largest newswire services.
Now, Walmart has confirmed that the story is fake.
Walmart was the subject of a fake news release issued on Monday, Sept. 13, that falsely stated Walmart announced a partnership with Litecoin (LTC). Walmart had no knowledge of the press release issued by GlobeNewswire, and it is incorrect. Walmart has no relationship with Litecoin.
GlobeNewswire issued anoticeacross its service confirming that journalists and other readers should disregard the news release, "Walmart Announces Major Partnership With Litecoin (LTC)" issued September 13, 2021, over GlobeNewswire. All further questions should be directed to GlobeNewswire.
This has gone from a big boost to the crypto space to another example of the skeptics of how it's used by criminal scammers.
Absolutely brutal.