Crypto at the cinema? Moviegoers can soon pay with Bitcoin

American cinema chain to accept bitcoin as a form of payment for online purchases.

You can soon purchase popcorn with cryptocurrency.

AMC Entertainment will soon offer consumers the option to pay using bitcoin for online purchases of movie tickets and food and beverage concessions, with what will be a first for the industry.  

Adam Aron, Chairman and CEO of AMC, told CNBC in an earnings call that the cinema is expecting to have the technology and IT systems in place to accept bitcoin by the end of 2021.

The announcement comes after the cinema’s second-quarter win, with the meme stock’s shares climbing more than 4 percent.

Adam Aron, CEO of AMC Entertainment.

In 2020, the closure of cinemas worldwide saw box-office receipts hit an all-time low.

According to the Motion Picture Association (MPA) THEME report for 2020, movie patronage plummeted from an average of 1 billion cinema admissions to just 240 million for the year. 

 However, an increase in vaccination counts saw a rise in movie-going demand, with AMC welcoming more than 22 million moviegoers from around the globe back to their theaters this year. 

“New blockbuster films released during the quarter drove successive new pandemic-era box office records,” Aron said. 

“Fortunately for us, as guests returned to our theatres, they splurged on our food & beverage offerings, which admittedly is quite a high-margin business.”

Along with the introduction of bitcoin, guests will also see Apple Pay and Google Pay as payment options on AMC’s website.  

“AMC’s journey through this pandemic is not finished, and we are not yet out of the woods,” Aron says. 

“[But] one can look ahead and envision a happy Hollywood ending to this story.”

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Written by Rebecca Borg