AMC will accept shiba inu for online payments by next quarter, according to the chief executive

• AMC will be accepting shiba inu online in the next two to four months, CEO Adam Aron said on Monday.
• Aron said online payments company Bitpay had agreed to support shiba inu for purchases of movie tickets and concessions.
• Aron recently ran a Twitter poll asking if the company should take the meme token as payment - 81% said "yes".

AMC Entertainment, the largest movie theater chain in the US, will start accepting crypto meme coin shiba inu for online payments in the next two to four months, according to chief executive Adam Aron.

Aron tweeted the decision on Monday and said it was thanks to crypto payment provider Bitpay that the company could offer the dogecoin spin-off in addition to other digital tokens to pay for movie tickets and concessions. Aron said AMC would be the first Bitpay client to accept shiba inu.

"Attention #SHIBArmy: Our friends @Bitpay decided to support Shiba Inu specifically because I asked, so AMC can take shiba inu for online payments of movie tickets and concessions. @AMCTheatres to be the first @bitpay client to accept Shiba Inu. Timing 60-120 days. This is a WOW!" Aron said.

AMC had already announced earlier this month in an earnings call that it was exploring how it could accept shiba inu. Aron said the company had found a solution that meant it did not have to hold crypto on its balance sheet, with all the associated risks.

"A lot of you voted, and a lot of you voted yes, and we are now figuring out how we can take shiba inu as a currency," Aron said in an earnings call last Monday.

"That's the next one on our cryptocurrency hit parade."

Aron had launched a Twitter poll late October asking if the company should accept shiba inu payments and 81.4% had said "for sure".

Thanks to the "SHIBarmy" - fervent fans of shiba inu - pushing for Robinhood to list it and huge purchases by crypto whale, the coin has doubled in value in the space of a month, according to Coinbase data.

Shiba inu was last down 9% on Tuesday, as the broader cryptocurrency market got knocked lower by a combination of bearish factors.

Aron has embraced AMC's fame as a meme stock and appealed to the retail traders that propelled it higher during the pandemic.

Aron also tweeted on Friday that AMC now accepted bitcoin, ether, bitcoin cash and litecoin for online payments for its website and smartphone app. It had already accepted crypot for gift card payments.

The company also announced in the earnings call that it would also accept dogecoin for online payments by the first quarter of 2022.