Philippine authorities warned seven cryptocurrency platforms of potential criminal charges and fines., 2026/04/21 14:25:17

The Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines (SEC) has announced that the decentralized trading platform dYdX, along with the crypto platforms Aevo, gTrade, Pacifica, Orderly, Deriv, and Ostium, are operating in the country without registration and licenses, thus functioning illegally.

The agency stated that unlicensed crypto platforms are prohibited from soliciting funds from local traders. The mentioned platforms are not registered as virtual asset service providers and are therefore not compliant with requirements regarding minimum capital, cybersecurity measures, the segregation of their own and client assets, anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, and regular reporting to local authorities.

The SEC warned that anyone promoting the listed platforms in the Philippines could face criminal charges. Under local securities laws, operators of all seven services could incur fines of up to 5 million Philippine pesos ($89,000) or face imprisonment for up to 21 years.

Philippine authorities have intensified oversight of the cryptocurrency sector—last December, local internet service providers blocked American exchanges Coinbase and Gemini to combat unlicensed crypto service providers. In August of the previous year, the SEC accused crypto exchanges OKX, Bybit, KuCoin, and Kraken of illegal operations, asserting that this poses significant financial risks to Filipino investors.

In 2024, the agency demanded that companies Google and Apple remove the application of Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, from their stores, claiming that the trading platform offers unregistered securities and operates as an unregistered broker.