Leading U.S. movie theater chain AMC has revealed it is now accepting dogecoin payments for digital gift cards that are then accepted on the company’s website, mobile application, and in theaters. DOGE payments were added along with other cryptocurrencies.
During AMC’s Q2 earnings call back in August, its CEO Adam Aron revealed the firm was looking to accept cryptocurrencies like bitcoin for movie tickets and concessions by the end of the year, and that it was exploring “how else AMC can participate in this burgeoning cryptocurrency universe.”
The firm is now accepting cryptocurrencies for digital gift cards using BitPay. The move was announced by AMC’s CEO on Twitter, and was celebrated by the cryptocurrency’s community.
It’s worth noting that when AMC announced it was exploring cryptocurrency payments, it did not mention dogecoin as an option. The company added the Shiba Inu-inspired cryptocurrency as a payment option weeks after its CEO asked his followers on Twitter whether the company should explore it.
Responding to Aron’s poll, the cryptocurrency community overwhelmingly voted on AMC exploring accepting DOGE payments, with the CEO later commenting the poll was his most popular tweet ever.
As CryptoGlobe reported, search interest for the meme-inspired cryptocurrency exploded during its massive 10,000% price rally earlier this year, going from an average of 135,000 monthly searches in April 2020 to 16.5 million in April 2021.
Dogecoin was created back in 2013 as a joke. The cryptocurrency’s community is well-known for taking on philanthropic projects, which included helping charitable organizations. It made headlines in 2014 after raising more than $25,000 worth of DOGE to let the Jamaican bobsleigh team attend the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The surge was first seemingly related to the WallStreetBets subreddit and its battle against hedge funds over the price of GameStop’s shares. It started after a parody account on Twitter going by WSB Chairman asked whether DOGE had ever traded at $1, other users piled on, and kept going with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and other celebrities joking about it.
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