AMC to allow Bitcoin purchases by the end of 2021

Published , by TJ Denzer

Throughout the last year, GameStop has most certainly been the business and stock that controlled a great deal of the news cycle thanks to its unlikely blow-up in value. However, another that has been lurking in the periphery of GameStop pretty much all along has been AMC. There was a similar effort to grow the value of AMC stock in and around the same time as GameStop, though it didn’t take off nearly to the degree that GameStop did. Even so, AMC is still kicking about and aiming to keep itself relevant in a tough time for movie theaters. Apparently, AMC will begin allowing Bitcoin as payment on transactions by the end of the year.

This news was reported in an earnings conference call alongside AMC’s Q2 2021 earnings results. In said call, AMC executives revealed that their plan to make payments allowable via Bitcoin on purchases of movie tickets and snacks.

"I've had to learn more in the past six months about blockchain and cryptocurrency than I learned about it in the entire decade before that," said AMC CEO Adam Aron.

AMC has had some interesting spikes this year, often coinciding with stories related to GameStop. It started an abysmal year, spiked, trailed off, and then exploded in June with a more than $60 USD high.

This is apparently just the start of AMC’s desire to get on board with cryptocurrency as well. According to Aron, the company is actively looking into further opportunities to take part in the cryptocurrency market.

“We are exploring how else AMC can participate in this new burgeoning cryptocurrency universe, and we're quite intrigued by potentially lucrative business [opportunities]."

AMC has left little confusion about the fact that it wants to remain in the ongoing conversations surrounding popular stocks and markets. It found itself in an interesting position earlier this year when many of those going big into GameStop to boost its value also did the same with AMC’s stock. To that end, AMC has also suggested it would be open to partnership with GameStop even if there’s little cause for it at this time.

Cryptocurrency is also an extremely popular investment right now with the value of popular markets like Bitcoin and Dogecoin fluctuating wildly. It may very well be part of several ploys by AMC to ensure that it doesn’t fall back into the sorry state it had been in with the pandemic and related popularity growth of alternative movie-viewing services. That said, we’ll see if these ploys bear any fruit for AMC soon enough as it opens its business to cryptocurrency with Bitcoin later this year.