Walmart is planning for the advent of the Metaverse.

Massive retail chain Walmart filed several trademarks at the tail-end of December for services including virtual goods, virtual currency, and NFTs. According to an official statement, Walmart has filed these trademarks in the interest of “continuously exploring how emerging technologies may shape future shopping experiences.”

Walmart is getting serious about the metaverse https://t.co/ZjfA9FF2kU pic.twitter.com/w0SYUHUreI

— The Verge (@verge) January 16, 2022

“We are testing new ideas all the time,” the company said. “Some ideas become products or services that make it to customers. And some we test, iterate, and learn from.”

With the advent of these trademarks, it’s like that Walmart is planning to stake a preemptive claim in the “metaverse,” an oft-touted concept wherein the internet would become a tangible place within itself, within which specialized commerce would take place reliant on systems like cryptocurrency and NFTs.

JUST IN: Walmart prepares to launch NFTs, a cryptocurrency and join the metaverse

– CNBC (@laurenthomas) pic.twitter.com/2CQ2cHdI9m

— Blockworks (@Blockworks_) January 16, 2022

“They’re super intense,” trademark attorney Josh Gerben told CNBC about Walmart’s filings. “There’s a lot of language in these, which shows that there’s a lot of planning going on behind the scenes about how they’re going to address cryptocurrency, how they’re going to address the metaverse and the virtual world that appears to be coming or that’s already here.”

“All of a sudden, everyone is like, ‘This is becoming super real and we need to make sure our IP is protected in the space,’” said Gerben.