Compare Top Filipino Crypto Exchanges

1. Coins.ph

Coins.ph takes first place by covering the entire peso-to-crypto cycle inside one app. Its operating company, Betur Inc., has held BSP authorization since September 2017 and stacks a VASP license on top of electronic money and remittance permissions, which is why cash-in and cash-out run through InstaPay, PESONet, GCash, Maya, and OTC partners. The company reports more than 16 million users, and over 100 assets trade against the peso.

Pricing rewards anyone who uses the professional screen. Coins Pro charges 0.10% for makers and 0.15% for takers at the entry tier, falling to 0.03% and 0.05% at the top volume band, with the fee schedule published in full. The one-tap Convert screen states no fee at all, because its margin sits inside the quoted rate. Convert costs us roughly a percentage point more than the same order on Coins Pro.

No rival can copy the peso stablecoin. PHPC holds a one-to-one peg, backed by cash and short-term instruments at Philippine banks, and can be transferred across Polygon and Ronin for a few centavos. Coins.ph connected stablecoins to the national QR Ph network in April 2026 and added Bitcoin and Ether in June, so a balance now spends at close to 700,000 merchants with the sale settled in the background. 

Pros

• The broadest BSP license set of any platform here, covering exchange, e-money and remittance activity under one operator.
• Coins Pro fees start at 0.10% and 0.15%, the cheapest published rates available to a Philippine resident.
• PHPC and QR Ph spending turn crypto balances into everyday money without a manual sale to pesos first.

Cons

• The default Convert screen hides its cost inside the spread, so beginners pay more without seeing why.
• No futures, margin, or copy trading, which pushes active traders towards platforms they cannot legally use here.
• Support queues lengthen noticeably during volatile sessions, a complaint we saw repeated across local forums.

2. PDAX

PDAX runs genuine peso order books rather than a broker quote. The exchange has held its BSP license since September 2018, serves roughly four million users, and lists more than 50 assets priced directly against the peso. Spot trading costs 0.40% for makers and 0.50% for takers, dearer than Coins Pro, though depth on BTC/PHP and ETH/PHP absorbed our larger test orders with less slippage than any competitor.

Government bonds put PDAX ahead of the wallets below it. Through PDAX Securities, formerly Bonds.ph, the app distributes tokenized treasury bonds from a ₱500 minimum, with retail treasury bonds from ₱5,000 and tradable on the secondary market. Nearly half of all government bond account holders now hold them in tokenized form. PDAX also supplies the trading engine behind GCash, so its pricing reaches tens of millions more people.

The record carries one serious mark. In February 2021, an unfunded sell order reached the order book during a volume surge, Bitcoin briefly printed at ₱300,000 against a market above ₱2 million, and the exchange went offline for 36 hours before reversing the trades and locking roughly 2,800 accounts out of their balances. Management handled the fallout publicly and under BSP supervision, and nothing similar has recurred.

Pros

• Real peso order books with limit orders, the deepest local liquidity we measured on BTC/PHP.
• Tokenized treasury bonds from ₱500 sit beside crypto in the same account.
• BSP licensed since 2018 and trusted enough to power crypto trading inside the country's largest wallet.

Cons

• Trading fees of 0.40% and 0.50% run four times the entry rate on Coins Pro.
• Bitcoin withdrawals cost 0.0004 BTC, well above what most exchanges charge.
• The 2021 outage and trade reversal remain the most serious platform failure in the local market.

3. GCash

GCash reaches further into Filipino life than any dedicated exchange can. Mynt, its parent, reported 40.4 million monthly active users out of roughly 90 million accounts as at 31 March 2026, and filed in June for a ₱92.3 billion listing on the Philippine Stock Exchange, the largest IPO in the country's history. GCrypto, the crypto feature, is powered by PDAX under that exchange's license and lists more than 40 coins.

Beginners get more tools than the simplicity suggests. Limit orders sit alongside instant buys, coins move to and from external wallets, USDC arrived through a partnership with Circle, and a gold-backed token trades from ₱500. Tokenized treasury bonds sit a few taps away in the same menu, making GCash the easiest place in the country to hold crypto and government debt together.

Cost transparency is the trade-off. GCash states that the displayed price already includes its service and platform fees and refreshes every ten seconds, so you see a rate, never a percentage. Checking it against the live BTC/PHP market on PDAX, which supplies the liquidity, is the only way to price that convenience. Funding comes solely from your GCash balance, and transfers above ₱50,000 follow a separate process.

Pros

• The lowest barrier to a first purchase in the market, using an app roughly half of Filipino adults already open weekly.
• Limit orders, external wallet transfers, USDC, and a gold-backed token in a beginner interface.
• Trading is executed by PDAX, a BSP-licensed exchange, rather than an offshore counterparty.

Cons

• Fees are folded into the displayed price, so the cost of each trade is invisible.
• The asset list trails Coins.ph, and the coins available depend on what PDAX supports.
• Funding works only from a GCash balance, which caps how much larger investors can move at once.

4. Maya

Maya suits people who want crypto next to a savings account rather than in a separate trading app. Maya Philippines received its VASP license in December 2021 and opened crypto trading in 2023 using Coinbase Institutional infrastructure behind the scenes. More than 30 tokens are listed, purchases start at ₱100, and the same app holds Maya Bank deposits insured by the PDIC up to ₱1 million. 

The banking side does the persuading. Maya Savings lifts its base rate to as much as 15% a year on the first ₱100,000 for customers completing monthly missions, beating any commercial bank, and cash-in works through more than 90,000 physical channels including groceries, pawnshops and remittance centers. In May 2026, the company partnered with payments firm Lydian so merchants can accept stablecoins and settle in pesos the same day.

Traders will find the crypto feature thin. There is no order book, no limit order and no published trading fee, so the entire cost is a spread Maya does not disclose. Someone buying monthly and keeping salary, savings, and loans in one app may accept that opacity. Anyone measuring execution quality will not.

Pros

• Crypto, a PDIC-insured deposit account and high-yield savings sit in a single BSP-supervised app.
• Purchases from ₱100 and more than 90,000 cash-in points reach customers far outside Metro Manila.
• Merchant crypto acceptance through the Lydian partnership pushes the platform beyond pure trading.

Cons

• No published trading fee and no disclosed spread, so the real cost of a purchase cannot be checked.
• No order book or limit orders, leaving every trade at Maya's quoted rate.
• Deposit insurance protects peso balances only, a point easily misread inside a banking app.

5. Moneybees

Moneybees does what the app-based platforms cannot, which is to turn physical cash into crypto. Founded in 2017 as the country's first over-the-counter crypto service, Moneybees Forex Corporation is registered with the BSP and the Anti-Money Laundering Council, and works through partner outlets rather than its own branches.

The mechanics are deliberately old-fashioned. Register once, then transact at any partner outlet or through the online trading desk, choosing between Bitcoin, Ether and Tether. Buying means handing over pesos and receiving coins in your wallet. Selling means sending coins in and collecting cash at the counter or a transfer to your bank. The company advertises no transaction fees, so the margin again sits in the quoted rate.

Coverage decides whether this works for you. Three assets, outlet opening hours and a city-heavy partner network make Moneybees a poor primary account and an excellent secondary one, particularly for Filipinos without a bank account or verified e-wallet. Confirm the outlet's limits and quoted rate before traveling with larger amounts, since neither is published in advance.

Pros

• The only BSP-registered way to convert physical cash into crypto at a staffed counter.
• Partner outlets in pawnshops and money changers reach customers with no bank or e-wallet.
• Selling returns pesos as cash on the spot or as a bank transfer, with no app dependency.

Cons

• Only Bitcoin, Ether and Tether are supported.
• Rates are quoted at the counter, and the built-in margin is never published.
• No charts, order book or portfolio tools, so this is a conversion service rather than an exchange.

6. UnionBank

UnionBank is the only universal bank in the Philippines holding a full VASP license, granted by the BSP in September 2023, and it has been extending an in-app crypto wallet to more customers since August 2025. Access sits inside UnionBank Online beside your deposit accounts, opens after a client suitability assessment, and funds move from your own peso account. For customers who distrust standalone crypto apps, that is the appeal.

The bank has been at this longer than the license suggests. It ran the country's first bank-operated crypto ATM in 2019 and piloted PHX, a peso-backed token for interbank settlement, years before stablecoins went mainstream. UnionBank states the feature carries no added fees, which puts the cost inside the exchange rate, and its developer documentation shows PDAX supplying the pricing.

The offering remains narrow. Coverage is limited to major assets, access still rolls out in stages rather than to every customer, and there are no charts, limit orders, or advanced order types. Crypto held through the bank falls outside PDIC deposit insurance, as it does everywhere else. It ranks last on product depth, not on the strength of the institution.

Pros

• Crypto sits inside a universal bank you may already use, with pesos moving from your own account.
• A full BSP VASP license and a blockchain track record dating back to 2019.
• No stated trading fee and no separate app or wallet to manage.

Cons

• A short asset list compared with every dedicated platform on this page.
• Access is gated by a suitability assessment and is still rolling out to customers in stages.
• No order book, limit orders or trading tools, and no deposit insurance on crypto balances.

Why the Global Exchanges Are Missing From This List

Filipinos held accounts on Binance, Bybit, OKX and Kraken for years, so their absence needs explaining. Under the CASP Rules, a platform serving Philippine users must register locally. Its August 2025 advisory listed ten offshore exchanges as unregistered, noting the list was not exhaustive, and further advisories in April 2026 covered HTX and decentralized derivatives platforms including dYdX.

The consequences are practical. App store removals and service provider blocks cut off new sign-ups and downloads, and reaching a blocked platform through a virtual private network leaves you outside Philippine consumer protection, with no local entity to complain to and no regulator to escalate a frozen withdrawal. 

One way back is now open. Binance returned through BlockShoals Technologies, a Philippine company the SEC cleared on 2 July 2026 to act as a crypto-asset intermediary inside its Strategic Sandbox. BlockShoals must finish a 90-day systems integration with a licensed local VASP before onboarding users; the sandbox phase should run at least two years, and the BSP says sandbox participation does not replace the licenses its rules require.

How to Choose a Crypto Exchange in the Philippines

All six platforms above hold BSP licenses, so the decision turns on funding, real cost per trade, and which extras you will use. We run these checks before sending money anywhere.

1. Verify the license before you compare fees: The BSP publishes its register of licensed Virtual Asset Service Providers, and independent trackers such as the BitPinas VASP list mirror it with dates. 
2. Understand what each license covers: A BSP VASP license governs conversion between pesos and crypto plus anti-money-laundering duties under Circular No. 1108, while SEC registration under the CASP Rules governs trading venues, intermediation and marketing. 
3. Match funding to the bank you already have: InstaPay and PESONet transfers from BDO, BPI, Metrobank, LandBank and PNB now cost individual clients nothing, so a bank transfer beats a card by several percent. If your money lives in a wallet instead, our guide to buying crypto with GCash covers the same ground.
4. Price the spread rather than the headline rate: Four of the six platforms here quote a rate with the fee built in. Buy ₱1,000 of Bitcoin and sell it back immediately, then compare what returns to your balance, since that round trip exposes the true cost better than any published table. 
5. Start your tax records with the first trade: The Philippines has committed to the OECD's Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, with exchanges of data due to begin by 2028, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue is already exploring blockchain analytics. Export your transaction history monthly, because reconstructing it later is the expensive option.

Crypto and Bitcoin Regulation in the Philippines

Crypto is legal to own and trade in the Philippines. Two regulators share the work, and the division between them explains almost every enforcement headline of the past year.

• The BSP licensed the sector first, then stopped issuing licenses: Circular No. 944 in 2017 covered virtual currency exchanges, and Circular No. 1108 replaced it in 2021 with a full Virtual Asset Service Provider framework built on Financial Action Task Force standards. 
• The SEC built the trading rulebook in 2025: Memorandum Circulars 4 and 5, issued on 30 May 2025 and effective from 5 July, require any crypto-asset service provider serving Filipinos to be a Philippine stock corporation with ₱100 million in paid-up capital excluding crypto, a staffed local office, and segregated client funds.
• Enforcement escalated from advisories to blocks: The SEC named ten offshore exchanges in August 2025, the NTC ordered service providers to restrict roughly 50 platforms in December, including Coinbase and Gemini, which were cut off in March 2026, and the Binance, Bitget, OKX and MEXC apps left the Philippine Apple App Store in April.
• The BSP tightened what licensed platforms may list: In June 2026, the central bank barred licensed VASPs from supporting privacy-enhancing assets and issued due diligence standards requiring exchanges to assess issuer background, market maturity, use case, transparency, liquidity and legal compliance before listing any token.
• A supervised path back is being tested: BlockShoals Technologies received full SEC approval on 2 July 2026 to act as a crypto-asset intermediary inside the Strategic Sandbox, with Binance as its global partner, a 90-day integration period first and a testing phase expected to run at least two years.

The user test is simple. A BSP license plus Philippine corporate registration puts your money inside the local protection framework. Without both, no Philippine regulator can help you recover it.

How Does the BIR Tax Crypto?

No Philippine statute deals with crypto tax specifically. The Bureau of Internal Revenue works from the National Internal Revenue Code, which taxes income from whatever source, and that general rule produces most of the answers below. Treat this as background, not advice.

• Gains are generally taxed as income at graduated rates: Profits from selling crypto for pesos fall into your annual income tax return, where the schedule runs from 0% on the first ₱250,000 to 35% at the top band. Employees file through the usual annual return, and self-employed taxpayers use the return for business and professional income.
• Self-employed traders below the VAT threshold have a flat option: Individuals with gross receipts under ₱3 million may elect an 8% flat tax on receipts above ₱250,000 in place of graduated rates and percentage tax, which often suits full-time traders better than the schedule.
• Disposals include more than cashing out: Swapping one coin for another and paying for goods with crypto both realize a gain or loss measured in pesos at the time of the transaction, and mining, staking and airdrop rewards count as income at their peso value on receipt.
• Foreign platforms now charge 12% VAT on their fees: Republic Act No. 12023 extended value-added tax to digital services consumed in the Philippines, so non-resident providers registering with the BIR add 12% to service charges such as trading fees.
• The reporting gap closes in 2028: The Philippines is among the jurisdictions committed to the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, under which exchanges collect user identity and transaction data for automatic exchange between tax authorities. The current BIR Commissioner led the Philippine delegation that signed that commitment.

The line between an investor and a trader carrying on a business decides the treatment, and the BIR has published no crypto-specific test for it. An hour with a Philippine accountant costs less than an assessment carrying a 25% surcharge.

Cryptocurrency Adoption in the Philippines

Filipino crypto use is broad, retail-led and increasingly plugged into ordinary payments rather than speculation.

• The country sits ninth globally and sixth for retail activity: Chainalysis ranked the Philippines ninth of 151 countries in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, sixth for retail value received at centralized services and thirteenth for decentralized finance, a slide from the second place it held in 2022 as Axie Infinity peaked.
• Remittances give the market its purpose: Overseas Filipinos sent home a record $35.63 billion in cash remittances during 2025, and $39.62 billion counting transfers in kind, which is why every licensed platform here treats cheap cash-out as a core feature.
• The wallets, not the exchanges, carry the volume: GCash reported 40.4 million monthly active users in March 2026 against roughly 90 million registered accounts, and its parent filed for a ₱92.3 billion listing in June, with the offer scheduled for October.
• Tokenized government debt found a real audience: Treasury bonds distributed through PDAX and GCash from a ₱500 minimum now account for close to half of all government bond account holders, and a PDAX white paper published with Saison Capital and Onigiri Capital puts the domestic tokenization opportunity at $60 billion by 2030.
• Stablecoins are moving into the checkout: Coins.ph connected USDT and USDC to the national QR Ph network in April 2026 and added Bitcoin and Ether in June, covering close to 700,000 merchants, while a bill filed in Congress would direct the BSP to buy 2,000 Bitcoin a year for five years and hold them for two decades.

Against the country figures in our crypto adoption statistics, the Philippines reads as a payments market first and an investment market second, the reverse of most of Europe. Neighboring markets answer the same questions differently, as our guide to crypto exchanges across Asia shows.

How to Buy Bitcoin in the Philippines

Fifteen minutes covers a first purchase on any of the licensed platforms here, and pesos stay pesos the whole way. This is the order we worked in when opening each account.

1. Pick the platform that matches how you hold money: Coins.ph gives the cheapest published fees and the widest cash-in options, PDAX gives real order books, GCash and Maya suit anyone already using those wallets, and Moneybees serves buyers holding physical cash.
2. Complete verification with a government ID: A UMID, passport, driver's license or PhilID cleared verification within minutes on every platform we tested. Enter your name exactly as printed, since a mismatch against your bank or wallet records is the usual reason a first deposit is held.
3. Fund in pesos through the cheapest channel available: An InstaPay transfer from BDO, BPI, Metrobank, LandBank or PNB now costs individual clients nothing and lands in seconds; PESONet handles larger amounts the same banking day, and cards should be a last resort because processors add several percent.
4. Use a limit order where one exists: On Coins Pro, PDAX and GCrypto you can set your own BTC/PHP price rather than accept the instant-buy rate, and that single step saved us roughly one percent per purchase during testing.
5. Decide on custody and start your records: Frequent traders can leave a working balance on a licensed platform, while anything held for years belongs in self-custody, weighed up in our guide to the best crypto wallets. Export your transaction history from day one. Dollar holders can compare the options in our guide to buying Tether in the Philippines.

Selling reverses the same steps, and a peso withdrawal to a bank or wallet landed within minutes on every platform we tested.

Final Thoughts

Coins.ph finishes first because it has the broadest license set and the only published fee schedule starting at 0.10%. PDAX suits anyone wanting a real order book and tokenized government bonds, GCash removes every obstacle to a first purchase, Maya fits savers who want one app for everything, Moneybees serves cash buyers, and UnionBank keeps crypto on a bank balance sheet.

The larger change is that the Philippine market stopped being a grey zone. Two years ago, a Filipino could open an account almost anywhere and hope. The regulators have since drawn the perimeter, enforced it against some of the largest exchanges in the world, and built a sandbox for those willing to return through the front door. 

Before committing real money, run ₱1,000 through the whole cycle. Deposit, buy, sell, withdraw. That loop teaches you more about spreads and settlement times in twenty minutes than any review can, this one included.

Our Methodology

The ranking reflects what a resident of Manila, Cebu, or Davao gets in practice. Every account was opened with Philippine identity documents and funded in pesos from local banks and wallets. Six criteria set the order.

1. Trust Score: A rating out of 5 set by our editors, built from license status, the regulator standing behind it, disclosure quality, how past failures were handled, and how long the operator has been running.
2. License Verification: Checked every operator against the BSP register of Virtual Asset Service Providers and against SEC advisories, both before and after the CASP enforcement wave of the past year.
3. PHP Funding Methods: Sent InstaPay and PESONet transfers from Philippine bank accounts, cashed in from GCash and Maya balances, and timed each arrival while recording what it cost after Circular No. 1238 took effect.
4. Real Cost of Trading: Bought and immediately sold a fixed peso amount on every platform, comparing the round trip against the published rate to expose spreads that no fee table discloses.
5. Security and Incident History: Reviewed breach and outage records, custody arrangements, reserve disclosure and the account protections a user can switch on, including two-factor login and address whitelisting.
6. Assets and Local Features: Compared listed assets, peso pairs, tokenized products, bills payment, merchant acceptance and support quality in English and Filipino.

Platforms without a BSP license never entered testing, including the offshore exchanges named in SEC advisories. Testing ran across June and July, with every license rechecked before publication.