Electronic gift card provider eGifter has launched a new incentive program for customers who want to pay with bitcoin, dogecoin or litecoin: a 3% discount in redeemable rewards on such purchases.

The eGifter Points program, officially launched today by the New York-based company, skews discounts favorably toward the company's decentralized payment options.

Customers in the rewards program only receive a 2% discount for using PayPal, and 1% for using credit cards to buy eGifter cards from major merchandisers.

Tyler Rowe, eGifter's co-founder and CEO, said:

It is becoming increasingly popular to offer discounts for consumers that use digital currencies such as bitcoin, as there are fewer fees and potential risks for merchants – who can pass savings on to customers.

Mobile gift card provider Gyft offers a similar rewards strategy. It has been offering a 3% points reward on bitcoin gift card purchases for some time, although Gyft only accepts BTC.

CEO Vinny Lingham has spoken publicly about his company's reduced fraud exposure with transactions in bitcoin, one of the reasons Gyft is able to offer bitcoin discounts for its customers.

Another offering called Coin for Coffee also exemplifies the cost savings of using digital currencies. With that program, a user can buy discounted Starbucks drinks with bitcoin, and leftover money from each transaction is returned to the user shortly thereafter.

Founded in 2011, eGifter started using Coinbase to accept bitcoin payments last September. Earlier this month, the company partnered with processor GoCoin to accept dogecoin and litecoin as well.

At the end of last year, eGifter received $2.2m in venture capital funding, the majority of which came from $1.7m in an angel round. The company has mobile apps for gift card transactions available in the Apple App Store as well as the Google Play Store.

eGifter offers more than 150 electronic gift cards from retailers such as JCPenney and Lowes, as well as restaurant chains like Domino's Pizza and Chili's.

Image via eGifter