"Dope" Becomes The First Movie To Allow Bitcoin Ticket Sales

"Dope," an indie comedy that made waves at Sundance, is using bitcoin in order to drive up ticket sales. Open Road Films, the movie's distributor, has partnered with MovieTickets.com and GoCoin to give moviegoers the opportunity to purchase their seats using bitcoin.

Opening on June 19, "Dope" will be the first film to accept bitcoin payments.

Why Dope?

Open Road Films is hoping the partnership will help draw attention to the film, which centers on a high-school age geek who loves 90's hip-hop and has a vast knowledge about technology. The plot doesn't revolve around cryptocurrency, but bitcoin is mentioned and used at certain times during the film.

Big Step For Bitcoin

That kind of exposure is a huge step for bitcoin, but even larger is the partnership between GoCoin and MovieTickets.com as it could broaden the digital currency's user base.

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According to MovieTickets.com CEO Joel Cohen, the partnership is set to extend beyond tickets sales for "Dope" and the company will allow customers to use bitcoin to purchase any movie tickets at some 985 theaters. As the website has become the number one movie ticket sales website in the US, it provides a great deal of exposure for bitcoin.

Mutually Beneficial

While enabling bitcoin payments may appear most beneficial to the cryptocurrency itself, both MovieTickets.com and Open Road Films say the agreement is important to their business' success as well.

MovieTickets.com believes that allowing bitcoin transactions will open the site up to a growing number of people who prefer to make digital currency payments, while Open Road is hoping to draw from some of the buzz surrounding bitcoin to gain exposure.