Walmart Inc (NYSE:WMT), the US supermarket chain, has denied a report it will start accepting litecoins as currency at its stores
A press release purporting to be from the shopping giant was faked according to a spokesman for the US group.
Initially, the value of litecoin and other cryptocurrencies surged but suspicions were raised when the press release did not appear on the retailer's main website.
CNBC said later that a Walmart spokesperson had confirmed to the broadcaster that the story was not true.
Litecoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that shares similarities with Bitcoin and is based on its original source code.
The crypto has very low transaction fees, making it more suitable for micro-transactions and point-of sale-payments.
It also has a block time of just 2.5 minutes that makes Litecoin faster than most other cryptocurrencies.
News of the false Walmart link sent the price soaring to US$230, but the subsequent denial sent it crashing back down again to US$180 with other cryptos also soaring and dropping back again.
Bitcoin jumped 4% to US$46,512 before falling to US$44,629.