Philippines Restricted Access to Coinbase and Gemini

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

According to a report by Manila Bulletin, the instruction issued by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) foresaw the restriction of access to 50 online trading platforms operating without a license. These platforms were flagged as unlicensed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines. The central bank has not publicly disclosed the complete list of blocked platforms.

This development clearly indicates a shift in the Philippines' approach to the cryptocurrency market, moving from tolerance to actual regulation. It seems that having a local license has become a decisive factor in accessing the market. Similar restrictions had been applied previously to Binance, and an increase in regulations has been observed. In December 2023, a 90-day compliance period was granted to Binance, and in March 2024, the NTC issued an instruction to local providers to implement access restrictions. The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission then requested Apple and Google to remove the Binance app from their stores, and recently, it was announced that 10 exchanges, including OKX, Bybit, and KuCoin, were operating without licenses.

The increasing pressure 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. Furthermore, on December 8, the digital bank GoTyme launched a service in partnership with Alpaca that allows the purchase and storage of 11 crypto assets via its application.