Walmart confirmed Monday that a press release earlier in the day announcing the retail giant had entered into a partnership with cryptocurrency litecoin was a fake.
The suspicious announcement was not found on Walmart's website, and an email sent to a contact person given in the statement was returned 'undeliverable'.
The fake statement said Walmart would allow its customers to make payments with litecoin at its online stores.
That alone sent the price of litecoin up by as much as 30 percent, but those gains quickly evaporated after Walmart said it wasn't true.
The price of bitcoin, the world's largest digital currency, also initially spiked on the "fake news"... but was trading back down to around $44,000 after the fraud was exposed.
The fake press release highlights the risk of putting money into a nascent cryptocurrency world, described by the head of the Securities and Exchange as the "Wild West."
