Benzinga | Dec 2, 2021 10:44AM EST

Why Did A Canadian Healthcare Company Add $1.5M Shiba Inu To Its Balance Sheet?

Canadian healthcare company Ask The Doctor has added $1.5 million worth of Shiba Inu (CRYPTO: SHIB) to its balance sheet.

What Happened: In an announcement on Wednesday, the Toronto-based telehealth service said it had acquired 31 billion Shiba Inu tokens worth approximately $1.5 million, at the time.

Ask The Doctor has added ~$1.5M USD (approx 31B $shib) to our balance sheet via Kraken.

We are 72 hours away from accepting #SHIB with our healthcare partners. pic.twitter.com/NHG17druCh

-- Ask The Doctor (r) (@askthedr) December 1, 2021

The company also revealed that it was only 72 hours away from accepting SHIB as a means of payment with its healthcare partners.

Last month, the company facilitated the acceptance of Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) as payment for a number of healthcare services across the U.S. and Canada. Essentially, people could pay for COVID-19 tests, prescription medications, and even plastic surgery with Dogecoin.

"Ask The Doctor has love for all 'dog tokens' and all crypto. We believe in financial/health inclusion for everyone globally," said the company in a statement, vowing to "get lots of utility" for Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Floki Inu (CRYPTO: FLOKI).

Ask The Doctor uses Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN) to accept Dogecoin purchases for its healthcare partners, and will reportedly integrate Floki Inu and Shiba Inu as soon as Coinbase adds support for the memecoins.

The firm also called upon Robinhood Markets Inc (NASDAQ:HOOD) CEO Vlad Tenev to list Shiba Inu and get its crypto wallet launched.

While more than 21 public companies, including Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), have added Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) to their balance sheets, it is somewhat less common for a company to manage its treasury with more volatile cryptocurrencies like Shiba Inu.

According to Ask The Doctor, however, "money is nothing but imagined reality."

"If someone wants to 'pay' for services using a 'dog token' and a business like ours is willing to accept it for something as important as healthcare services ... then that is all that matters," stated the firm.

Price Action: Thursday morning at publication, SHIB was trading at $0.00004268, down 9.50% in the last 24 hours. DOGE traded at $0.21, down 2.49% over the same period.

Photo by Alison Pang on Unsplash