AMC Theatres Open Up Online Payments in Bitcoin, Ether

AMC Theatres, the largest movie theatre chain in the US, will accept Bitcoin and a number of other cryptocurrencies as a mode of payment while paying for tickets online by the end of the year. The move comes over three months after the popular theatre chain announced during an earnings call that crypto payments for online transactions would be enabled before the turn of the year. AMC claims that alongside Bitcoin, customers will be able to use Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash to buy movie tickets. Dogecoin is also expected to make the list soon.

Adam Aron, Chief Executive Officer, AMC Theatres tweeted with enthusiasm that AMC Theatres will also offer support for Apple Pay, PayPal, and Google Pay which already account for about 14 percent of the company’s total online transactions. As noted by Engadget, CEO Adam Aron’s tweet mentions crypto support for online transactions alone, and not at physical outlets. This means that you still can’t really walk up to an AMC Theatre kiosk and buy your tickets or popcorn with your BTC balance.

The company has been a leader on the crypto adoption front and already accepts Dogecoin as payment for gift cards in partnership with BitPay, so the transition to full-fledged support is probably not too far away, especially since it’s the “people’s crypto”.

Along with the adoption of cryptocurrencies, AMC also announced plans to open more than a dozen new locations across the US, Europe, and the Middle East soon. The company currently owns 950 theatres and 10,500 screens across the globe.

CEO Adam Aron promised in September to accept Dogecoin by the end of this year following an overwhelming response to a Twitter poll, in which he asked whether AMC should add Dogecoin to the list of soon-to-be-supported cryptocurrencies. The poll received more than 1,40,000 responses, with the “Yes” option receiving a whopping 68 percent of the votes.

He went on to do the same for Shiba Inu, asking Twitter users whether that should also be added as a mode of payment. As many as 81 percent of respondents agreed, but there’s no word on when (or if) the company is planning to do so.