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- Kroger, America’s largest supermarket chain, has verified that a news statement saying the business will accept Bitcoin Cash in all of its locations was a hoax
- A newswire agency took it up and added a quotation from Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen, leading many to assume the announcement was genuine
- A false announcement was sent by a different wire agency, GlobeNewswire, claiming that the retail behemoth will begin taking the cryptocurrency Litecoin
Kroger, America’s largest supermarket chain, has verified that a news statement saying the business will accept Bitcoin Cash in all of its locations was a hoax. This morning, a news release was fraudulently created purporting to be The Kroger Co that falsely declared the organisation will begin to take Bitcoin Cash, a Kroger spokeswoman told Reuters. The message was fake and unsubstantiated and should be discarded, the representative added. The bogus press statement was initially put on Kroger’s website’s ‘investor relations’ section before being promptly deleted.
A newswire agency took it up and added a quotation from Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen, leading many to assume the announcement was genuine. Following the publication, the price of Bitcoin Cash increased by about 5% as speculators sought to get ahead of the coin’s expected acceptance. However, within 10 minutes of the announcement, Kroger promptly disputed any claims made as fraudulent, causing the price to plummet back to where it was before the release. The incident was reminiscent of a similar fake that occurred in September involving Walmart Inc.
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In another case, a false announcement was sent by a different wire agency, GlobeNewswire, claiming that the retail behemoth will begin taking the cryptocurrency Litecoin. Before Walmart stated the information was bogus and the announcement was taken down, the phony news release caused a brief increase of more than 30% in Litecoin. In response to the Kroger incident, PRNewswire and Cision stated that they take the issue of disinformation seriously and that they have several security mechanisms in place to validate the information. We have revoked the false release and are conducting an immediate investigation into the situation.
According to PRNewswire and Cision, the investigation will look into any illegal behaviour related to this situation. While fake news is nothing new, cryptocurrencies appear to be ideal terrain for deceit. Trading, unlike stocks, is largely untraceable, thus fraudsters leave minimal traces. And traders have grown to expect massive price swings in response to even the most insignificant statements. Kroger fell 2.8 percent to $42.21 at 12:47 p.m. in New York, the most on an S&P index of consumer staples firms in the United States. According to statistics provided by Bloomberg, Bitcoin Cash declined by less than 1%. Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, which has lost more than half of its value in the previous six months.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
