U.S. retail giant Walmart has posted a position for a cryptocurrency product lead on its website and careers platform LinkedIn a few hours ago.
North America’s largest retailer by total sales is looking to hire an expert in cryptocurrencies and digital payments. The new role for “Digital Currency and Cryptocurrency Product Lead” will be for the development of a digital currency strategy and product roadmap.
It is likely that Walmart is making moves to accept cryptocurrency as payments, though no details were provided.
“As one of the largest retailers and e-commerce companies, Walmart enables broad set of payment options for its customers.”
Building a Cryptocurrency Roadmap
The position seeks an “expert in Digital Currencies/Cryptocurrency and Blockchain related technologies,” which will “drive the vision for the product and capabilities roadmap.”
The successful applicant would also “identify crypto-related investment and partnerships,” the ad said.
The basic requirements for the position are a Bachelor’s Degree (though MBA is preferred), more than ten years of experience in product or program management, technology commercialization, and experience with the cryptocurrency ecosystem and related technologies. The salary was not specified.
The position advertisement comes less than a month after rival commerce giant Amazon posted its own job ad for a cryptocurrency and blockchain product lead.
In late July, the Payments Acceptance and Experience team at Amazon posted an ad for an “experienced product leader to develop Amazon’s Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap.”
The move sparked widespread speculation that the online shopping giant would be accepting crypto payments though Amazon has denied any reports that it would accept BTC.
The Digital Payments Race
Two years ago, Walmart applied for a patent on a stable crypto token similar to Facebook’s Libra project at the time though no further news on that has emerged.
In December 2020, Walmart was onboarded to the blockchain-based rewards platform StormX. StormX offered a 4% ‘cryptoback’ incentive for all Walmart purchases at the time.
Walmart has also experimented with blockchain technology for non-financial purposes, such as tracking drugs and food along the supply chain.
It is only a matter of time before one of the world’s retail giants opens the floodgates by enabling crypto payments; the rest will follow pretty quickly when that happens.
