eGifter First to Enable Bitcoin Payments in Apple iOS App Store

June 17, 2014 By: Kevin Xu

Following Apple’s reversal on banning apps that transfer bitcoins, one company is taking steps to leverage the cryptocurrency economy.

EGifter, a New York-based social gifting company, is the first to enable bitcoin payments on the Apple iTunes App Store.

They’re the first company to submit and be approved for handling bitcoin transactions following Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference that took place earlier this month and brought along updates to the terms for iOS mobile apps.

The eGifter app itself allows users to purchase and send branded gift cards from an abundance of over 200 retailers from the likes of Amazon to Walmart.

Putting a twist on gifting, eGifter also gives the option to post to social networks such as Facebook to allow friends to see your purchases, giving them the option to pitch in for a small-scale crowdsourcing of gifts.

On the merchant side, the eGifter platform allows for digital gift card promotions and offerings.

EGifter is especially popular with the cryptocurrency crowd, which includes users of Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin, since it lets them purchases gift cards to use at retailers that may not necessarily accept their cryptocurrency of choice ordinarily.

Coinbase handles eGifter’s cryptocurrency transactions. The lower processing fees allow eGifter to promote a loyalty program that incentivizes cryptocurrency usage.

This includes a points system and a built in 3 percent discount when paying with bitcoin.

According to Digital River’s Vice President and General Manager, Souheil Badra, bitcoin is a “game-changer.”

Speaking with eGifter’s CEO, Tyler Roye, he mentioned that one of the main goals in supporting bitcoin was to “help push adoption forward. With a larger community of users there is more motivation for entrepreneurs to invest time and money to innovate, improve the experience and reach those consumers.”

EGifter is one of several companies aiming to leverage cryptocurrencies and its passionate user-base to promote loyalty and cost-savings, and in a global economy, the value proposition of these disruptive currencies will see to more companies enabling bitcoin acceptance in the future.

Roye said, “We’ve received a passionate response from these cryptocurrency communities and have fed off of their enthusiasm to continue to innovate our technology to exceed their expectations. We hope to see cryptocurrencies realize their full potential, disrupting incumbent payment systems with solutions that are lower cost and less susceptible to fraud.”