Philippines Restricts Access to Coinbase and Gemini

The Philippines continues to increase its regulations on cryptocurrency exchanges, restricting access to significant platforms like Coinbase and Gemini. This situation has arisen as local internet service providers acted in accordance with regulatory instructions. Users reported that they could not access these platforms as of Tuesday.

According to a report by Manila Bulletin, the directive issued by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) stipulated restricting access to 50 online trading platforms operating without licenses. These platforms were flagged as unlicensed by the country’s central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The central bank has not disclosed the full list of the blocked platforms to the public.

This development clearly indicates that the Philippines' approach to the cryptocurrency market is shifting from tolerance to actual enforcement. It seems that having a local license has become a determining factor for market access. Similar restrictions have previously been imposed on Binance, and it has been observed that regulations are accelerating. In December 2023, a 90-day compliance period was granted to Binance, and in March 2024, the NTC issued directives to local providers to restrict access. The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission then requested Apple and Google to remove the Binance application from their stores, and most recently, it was announced that 10 exchanges, including OKX, Bybit, and KuCoin, were operating without licenses.

The increase in all these pressures has allowed licensed companies to offer new solutions. On November 19, the exchange PDAX collaborated with payroll company Toku to enable remote workers to receive their salaries in stablecoin. Additionally, on December 8, the digital bank GoTyme launched a service in partnership with Alpaca that allows the purchase and storage of 11 cryptocurrencies through its application.