Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) as a payment option could be going mainstream faster than you may think. Speaking at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit, Suresh Kumar, the global chief technology officer of Walmart (NYSE: WMT), discussed some of the ways the giant retailer is planning to make crypto a key part of its future payments strategy, both for physical and virtual goods. As Kumar noted, « Crypto will become an important part of how customers transact. »

Bitcoin, as the most popular crypto for payments, would stand to benefit the most. If a huge retailer like Walmart is really going all-in on crypto, that would be a tremendous validation point and would certainly be a bullish indicator for Bitcoin.

The metaverse and crypto

So what’s driving this newfound support for crypto as a payment option? One major factor has been Walmart’s embrace of the metaverse. As Kumar pointed out, Walmart customers are getting inspired to buy and discover new products as a result of all the time they are spending in virtual worlds. Once they are part of these virtual worlds, they are looking to pay for virtual goods, such as new merchandise for an online avatar. And that’s where cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin enter the picture.