Back in the day, AMC, which relied on meme retail investors for survival, couldn't stand tokenization; after a rant, both the stock price and MEME surged.
Written by: angelilu, Foresight News
On the evening of September 3, AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aron publicly attacked Robinhood for issuing tokenized AMC stocks without permission, using words such as "despicable," "absurd," "disgusting," "outrageous," "unforgivable," and "villainous," and claimed he had engaged external securities lawyers. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev only replied with four words: "What's the concern?"
Almost simultaneously, a token called MEME was launched on Robinhood Chain, paired with tokenized AMC transactions. According to GMGN market data, within 12 hours of its launch, its market capitalization surged from zero to over 150 million dollars; as of the time of writing, its market capitalization has reverted to around 100 million dollars, with a 24-hour trading volume of 115 million dollars.
The target of the criticism is a "stock" without shareholder rights
Some may still be unfamiliar with AMC. AMC Theaters was established in 1920, headquartered in Leawood, Kansas, USA, operating approximately 898 cinemas with 10,059 screens worldwide, making it the largest cinema operator globally, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: AMC).
As of the market close on September 3, AMC's stock price was 2.54 dollars, with a market capitalization of 2.27 billion dollars. In other words, a meme coin that launched 12 hours ago has a market capitalization equivalent to about 6% of the century-old company it references.
The debate between the two CEOs centers around Robinhood's tokenized stocks. On July 1, Robinhood launched its own L2 network, Robinhood Chain, rolling out 95 tokenized U.S. stocks, issued by offshore entities like Jersey, providing price exposure similar to real stocks but without granting equity, voting rights, or ownership, not available to U.S. investors, and not registered under U.S. securities law.
Aron's accusations consist of four points: Robinhood is a U.S. company yet operates in offshore jurisdictions to circumvent U.S. regulation; this "fictional synthetic equity market" undermines the company's own financing capability; investors receive something without actual shareholder rights; ultimately, it exacerbates public distrust of financial markets. He demands that Robinhood proactively cease trading tokenized AMC stocks, or he will evaluate whether to enforce a cessation and report to the SEC, while emphasizing that AMC is "completely unrelated to this and does not endorse it."
Robinhood's stance has remained unchanged: Stock Tokens are derivative contracts providing economic exposure, and holders do not enjoy legal or beneficial rights over the underlying company. Aside from Tenev's rhetorical question, the company has not issued a formal statement regarding the accusations.
The rising narrative MEME captures the CEO's anger
The official account of MEME @amemecoinrh has a single narrative: "The cinema is just a front; it has always been A Meme Coin." The three letters of AMC are redefined as A Meme Coin.
This joke holds power because Aron himself is the biggest beneficiary of meme culture. In January 2021, AMC's stock price fell to a historic low of 1.91 dollars, carrying over 5 billion dollars in debt, on the brink of bankruptcy reorganization—precisely because it appeared to be going bankrupt, it became a target for short-selling by hedge funds, with short-selling ratios reaching about 25% of the float at one point.
Retail investors on Reddit's WallStreetBets seized this opportunity to band together to buy in, heavily purchasing call options, forcing market makers to buy the underlying stock to hedge their exposure, creating a dual push from short squeezes and gamma squeezes: on January 27, it surged 301% in a single day, and on June 2, it hit an intraday high of 72.62 dollars, a historic peak. Aron capitalized on this momentum with continuous share issuances, raising approximately 2 billion dollars throughout the year, yanking the company back from the brink of bankruptcy.
(Note: AMC completed a 1:10 reverse stock split and merged APE shares on August 24, 2023. The figures mentioned above reflect the actual transaction prices at that time and should not be directly compared with today's stock price of 2.54 dollars.)
His stance at that time was one of full embrace: retail investors referred to themselves as "apes," and he dubbed them "Silverback," even donating 50,000 dollars to the Gorilla Protection Fund—this title still appears in his Twitter bio.
He is also not unfamiliar with cryptocurrency. In November 2021, AMC began to accept BTC, ETH, BCH, and LTC for movie tickets; in January 2022, Aron initiated a Twitter poll to gauge interest in accepting Dogecoin, with over two-thirds in favor, and in April of the same year, AMC's mobile app formally supported payments with Dogecoin and Shiba Inu through BitPay. In other words, he welcomes meme coins to buy popcorn but opposes using his equity for synthetic products—he has clearly drawn the line, and this conflict shouldn't be simply framed as "traditional CEOs not understanding blockchain."
Robinhood also played a role in that narrative. On January 28, 2021, it temporarily restricted users from buying GME and AMC, allowing only sales, which retail investors viewed as original sin. Robinhood claimed it was due to its clearinghouse increasing capital requirements to cope with high volatility in leveraged stocks, thus necessitating the restriction on buying certain stocks. Tenev apologized in Congress for this at a hearing. Five years later, the same company and the same stock are embroiled in a new altercation.
After the surge of the meme, there are always wealth stories. According to Lookonchain monitoring, one address spent 2,972 dollars to purchase 16.11 million MEME, reaping over 2.1 million dollars in profit in less than 12 hours, with a return of 713 times; Frank, the founder of the NFT project DeGods, spent 1,491 dollars to purchase 11 million MEME, with a peak holding exceeding 1.2 million dollars, yielding about 810 times.
After the rant, AMC itself rose 18%
The real AMC stock price rose by itself. On September 4, before the U.S. stock market opened, AMC's stock rose over 15%, closing at 2.94 dollars, bringing its market capitalization back to around 2.7 billion dollars. This public accusation, framed under the guise of "protecting investors," had the most direct short-term effect of generating a wave of attention for AMC itself—almost identical to the logic of 2021, except this time the ignition was the CEO himself.
Legally, AMC is currently only engaging lawyers to investigate whether to file a lawsuit; there are no answers regarding whether they can force a halt, while the offshore issuance structure is designed to evade such jurisdiction. In market terms, MEME is merely one of many AMC-related meme coins on Robinhood Chain, a typical case of "controversy as alpha": conflict provides narrative, and narrative provides liquidity.
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