Coins.ph Says "Funds Are Safe" While BSP Holds Its Pesos Hostage 🪙

Coins.ph, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the Philippines, said its license from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) remains active after reports surfaced that the operator could face license revocation over alleged ties to restricted offshore gambling operators. The exchange recorded approximately $52 million in 24-hour spot trading volume on Wednesday, according to CoinGecko.

"Coins.ph firmly denies any claim that it knowingly serves offshore gaming or gambling operators," the company said in an official statement shared with Cointelegraph on Wednesday. "Our users' funds are safe; we continue to operate as a BSP-licensed institution," it added. Asked whether transactions involving offshore gambling operators had been processed through its platform, a Coins.ph spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the exchange does not accept or permit such operators and continuously screens customers and transactions in line with BSP requirements. The spokesperson did not directly confirm or deny whether such transactions had occurred.

The license questions follow BSP restrictions on incoming InstaPay and PESONet transfers tied to DCPay Philippines, the entity that operates Coins.ph's peso e-wallet services. In an earlier advisory, Coins.ph said the BSP had instructed it to strengthen internal controls under Monetary Board Resolution No. 839, leaving cash-in services and QRPh collections temporarily unavailable while crypto trading, cash-outs, bill payments and merchant QRPh payments continued to function.

DCPay holds an electronic money issuer license, while Betur Inc., a separate Coins.ph entity, operates the exchange's crypto asset services under a virtual asset service provider license. Local outlet BitPinas reported that the central bank's restrictions targeted DCPay's payment operations rather than Betur's crypto services.

The BSP restrictions come against the backdrop of a 2025 central bank order directing supervised financial institutions to remove links providing access to gambling websites from their payment applications, though the BSP has not publicly linked that directive to the Coins.ph restrictions. Cointelegraph sought confirmation and comment from the BSP; a central bank representative said they would look into the inquiry but had not provided further comment at the time of publication.