The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the Philippines, Coins.ph, is reportedly facing regulatory action from the central bank

According to two informed sources, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the Philippines, Coins.ph, is facing punitive actions from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). The alleged violations reportedly involve providing services to offshore betting companies, with a severity that could lead to the revocation of the operating license for this 12-year-old company. One source stated that this would trigger an "earthquake" in the Philippine crypto ecosystem.

Coins.ph has over 18 million customers and a 24-hour spot trading volume of approximately $50 million, controlling about 75%-80% of the liquidity of pesos and stablecoins in the Philippines. Earlier this month, the BSP reportedly imposed restrictions on deposits made through Coins.ph's main wallet company, DCPay Philippines. Previously, several compliance executives from the exchange left, including Chief Compliance Officer Lexi Herrera, Head of Anti-Money Laundering Transaction Monitoring Chris Beaño, and Money Laundering Reporting Officer Irish Calagui.

A year ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas restricted the use of e-wallet applications for gambling, requiring regulated entities to cut off access to gambling websites within the apps. Subsequently, several betting entities migrated to Coins.ph. This restriction is not a temporary measure and no reasons have been provided. Coins.ph is one of the earliest crypto wallets and exchanges in the Philippines, acquired by Indonesian tech company Gojek for $95 million in 2019, and later sold to former Binance CFO Wei Zhou. Neither Coins.ph nor the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas responded to requests for comment.