Movie theater chain AMC recently began accepting cryptocurrency payments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. Just two months after its announcement, crypto payments account for 14% of its online transactions.
Big newsflash! As promised, many new ways NOW to pay online at AMC. We proudly now accept: drumroll, please… Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin. Also Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal. Incredibly, they already account for 14% of our total online transactions! Dogecoin next. pic.twitter.com/a7pqYBm7HB
— Adam Aron (@CEOAdam) November 12, 2021
That’s according to CEO Adam Aron, who took to Twitter to tout the remarkable surge in crypto adoption by AMC customers. “Incredibly, they already account for 14% of our total online transactions!” he wrote.
Aron also teased the addition of Dogecoin as a payment method in his tweet, noting, “Dogecoin next.” The AMC CEO posted a Twitter poll on whether the firm should accept payments in the meme coin in September, soon after it added crypto payment options.
With an overwhelming number of respondents in favor, AMC added DOGE as a payment option for its digital gift cards in October—but it has yet to introduce Dogecoin as a fully-fledged option for purchases such as online tickets.
AMC’s meme stock surge
AMC has enjoyed a remarkable change in its fortunes over the course of 2021, having been swept up in the “meme stock” boom alongside video game retailer GameStop.
Having started the year priced around $3, it caught the attention of retail investors on platforms such as Reddit, which propelled it to highs of over $60 in June. Since then, it’s cooled off somewhat and now trades at around $40 a share.
The meme stock phenomenon caught the attention of regulators concerned over the resulting market volatility, while trading platform Robinhood came in for criticism over temporarily halting purchases of certain stocks, citing cash flow issues. In June, the company was fined $70 million over “widespread and significant harm suffered by customers” relating to misleading communications, system outages, and inappropriate customer approvals for complicated trades.
