Bitcoin Forum

As requested by Jet Cash:


I'm a dude currently residing somewhere in the Philippines. This topic is for people who are genuinely curious on how bitcoin(or cryptocurrencies in general) is doing here in the Philippines.

Feel free to ask serious questions related to the current state of Bitcoin in the Philippines and I'll try my best to answer them as soon as possible.

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Public perception

Bitcoin is decently known here in the Philippines, especially for the teenager-young adult crowd. Unfortunately though, bitcoin is just mostly a investment and a sort of "mirage" that scammers and the uneducated people use to spread their ponzi scheme referral links. Even in the information technology crowd, a huge majority still think that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are just investments(even if they most definitely have the capabilities into understanding what bitcoin actually is, and what it's for), with only a very small minority that's actually passionate about bitcoin whether they're financially invested or not. So yeah, a lot of "when moon" people.

I personally know a few people in the technology industry that "invested" in XRP on it's all time high, without doing any research at all. A lot just claim that "XRP is a long hold". Pretty ironic that they're the demographic that you expect to do a lot of research; and also ironic that they actually sold at the crash even though they said that they would hold for years. LOL

Online social media groups concerning bitcoin are pretty much just breeding grounds for ponzi referral links. It's pretty sad, but it's something that's really expected due to the high percentage of poverty.

A lot of people(the older demographic) also thinks that bitcoin is a scam, simply because all they see on news television is those "bitcoin investment" ponzi schemes get caught up and raided by the police. I really don't blame them sometimes, as the media frequently word their titles quite inaccurately(or maybe on purpose, to spark more controversy).


Usability

The Philippines has Coins.ph, which is pretty much Philippine's Coinbase, but a lot better. With Coins.ph, you can pay your credit card bills, utility bills, telecom bills, government-related bills, insurance, etc, you name it! With that, you can also buy game credits and buy mobile load through the app. Pretty kick-ass if you ask me. Not to mention that you get a decent percentage of cashbacks(up to 10%) after every purchase.

About deposits to Coins.ph, you can deposit money to Coins.ph by simply going to a 7-Eleven store(which is pretty much almost everywhere), and using their digital kiosk. Fees aren't that bad either.

Take note though, that even though a lot of people are using Coins.ph due to the cashbacks and convenience, it doesn't necessarily mean that a lot of people use bitcoin in the Philippines. I think a significant amount of people just use Coins.ph to pay bills using the fiat wallet, instead of the bitcoin wallet.

I think there's a decent number of people who use bitcoin to send and receive bitcoin back and forth from the Philippines to whatever foreign country, but yea, a small minority.


Government Regulations

The Philippine government is just pretty much "meh" on bitcoin. As far as I know, they haven't legalized nor illegalized bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, they pretty much just let it slip. They're more focused on closing those ponzi schemes. The government is pretty much just approving left and right the opening of crypto-related businesses. I really don't think they care that much; as long as there's more taxes to collect, they're probably happy.

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P.S. Abra and Coins.ph are the leading wallet-exchanges in the Philippines; with Coins.ph being the most well known.

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EDIT: I think I should've made this top self-moderated.

These are some pictures posted by Silent26 from the Philippines.
http://mobileimg.com/mypictures/index.php?/category/12

I'd love to see some more with comments and descriptions so that we can get a feel for the islands and the local customs.

It might be best to post them in political or off topic though.

I'm also currently residing in the Philippines, but for the most parts of the year, I live in Canada. Tbh, one of the most reputable exchanges in there did a pretty great deal of bridging the gap between the Filipino people and bitcoin in general, though I must admit that most Filipinos are still seeing bitcoin as a ponzi scheme and a get-rich-quick scheme, which is quite saddening. Coins.ph also does a great job in being a concierge with bills payment and buying e-load and whatnot, and I must applaud how their customer service remain top notch even after all these years.

Unfortunately I really can't contribute to this, as I don't really travel much. 3rd world country problems right there.

Definitely! Coins.ph is convenient as hell, as you could also pay bills using it. With that said, yea it's really unfortunate that bitcoin is just a ponzi scheme or a get-rich-quick scheme in the Philippines; which is really not a surprise in my opinion, because you know, poverty and stuff. If you saw the Philippine bitcoin/crypto Facebook pages.. they're pretty much breeding grounds for referral links. There's only one Facebook group with legitimate enthusiasts due to the admins being strict.

This is because there are many scammers in our country that uses Bitcoin to scam other people. What's worse is these investors doesn't know what they are investing for. They just see how they can make money and don't think about the risks of putting their money into it. The sad part for me is these people have little to no knowledge on what Bitcoin is. What they only think is the returns if they invest into this company or group.

I have been using coins.ph for almost a year already and I didn't encounter any problems using it. The app is very convenient that you don't need to go to line up just to pay bills. I wish more and more users will be using this in the future.

I can help you on these, just give me a couple of hours, currently at work now.

it would be cool if you could write a short summary of the situation with bitcoin in Philippines from your own point of view. some suggestion topics to cover:
- the government stance about bitcoin, do they consider it as a currency or a commodity or something else? how are the regulations? how are taxes?
- the banks attitude towards bitcoin? are they happy and accepting bitcoin or are they blocking user's accounts who trade bitcoin or cause issues?
- how is the adoption of bitcoin (the most important thing i am interested in is seeing shops as in offline/physical location shops that are accepting bitcoin)

The Philippine government was pretty much 'meh' with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Slightly positive, due to them approving a good number of exchanges, but almost nothing negatively. They're just focused more on cracking down those ponzi schemes. Not strict with taxes as well, as far as I know.

There's this one bank that was pretty much locking up the bank accounts of people that made bitcoin/cryptocurrency-related transactions, so there was a lot of complaints sometime last year. Others moving to other banks because others are more crypto-friendly. I think that one bank that was previously locking accounts are crypto-friendly now though, as I haven't heard a single complaint since then(or maybe everyone just moved lol).

In Manila(the capital of the Philippines), ehh, a few bitcoin ATMs here and there, and that's pretty much it. The best thing you could use your bitcoin here right now is to pay for mobile load and to pay bills through Coins.ph(pretty much the Coinbase of the Philippines, but better). Bitcoin as a payment in the Philippines overall, a small small minority. Unfortunately bitcoin in the Philippines right now is mostly an investment and a sort of tool for ponzi schemes. The community of people who are really enthusiastic towards bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general is quite small unfortunately. Ponzi schemes are really hot here simply because of poverty and ignorance basically.

I have one question. Can you tell us about attitude of commercial banks in Philippines towards Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? As far as I know Central Bank of Philippines didn't recognized Bitcoin as currency, so it's grey area for commercial banks. Are they sceptical about crypto? From what I read, legal status of Bitcoin is similar like in my country, attitude of Central Bank also, but commercial banks are not crypto-friendly. They can even close your account if you deal with crypto, some banks also have restricted transfers to several crypto exchanges.

Do your government tax Crypto currencies based on Capital gains or as VAT as a currency? < I tried to Google it, but I cannot seem to find anything>

Would you say the Localbitcoin <Person2Person> trades are safe to use or are they also riddled with scammers and criminals that are waiting to pounce on victims.  ??? <Will tourists be ripped off, if they go that route?>

How many merchants accept bitcoin as direct payment. <Not via payment processors?>

It seems interesting also about bitcoin in the Philippines, because the Philippines is a country that has followed technological advancements today

Right, the Philippine government are open minded in the new technologies of cryptocurrency they accept bitcoin and recognize cause they see it is big help for there people to change there life and there economy.

Last year, one bank was locking up accounts of users that has crypto-related transactions. Wasn't hearing any complaints recently so it's either they're now crypto-friendly, or maybe most crypto people just moved to other banks. For now, they pretty much have no comment on crypto. So as of now, I'd say the Philippines is very crypto friendly.

I don't know anyone paying their taxes on capital gains LOL. Most government officials are pretty much old folks that are oblivious to cryptocurrencies.

I really don't know, as I rarely do meetup trades with LocalBitcoins, as I mostly accept PayPal. Anyway, this shouldn't really be a problem if you chose well secured locations like malls and such.

Very small minority.

Damn LOL. You should've been potentially the first customer to pay in BTC. :P

I know it sucks but the worse part is that some of our fellow men are stubborn in these stuffs. They still continue to post referrals here and referrals there despite the fact that their platform which they are joining in is brand new and already looks suspicious for the others. They choose to ignore all the warnings from their environment just for a few bucks that they might (since the majority of these schemes are quite questionable) earn on those referrals. I can't really understand why they are still hooked in these things which usually end up  a scam :(
Oh really? May I know what is it? I'm already tired of looking into referral links every time scroll down along my newsfeed ;D.

Yeah, that's the main problem. I think the best solution for this is through conducting seminars to educate them about crypto butvthe question is HOW? Our country do not show a strong support for us and we also do not have at an association so I guess it will depends on voluntary actions for now.

Really unfortunate indeed. Poverty does that to people, I guess?

I've left all the local bitcoin/crypto-related groups I knew due to all the spam. Barely any discussion at all.

Anyway, here you go: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CryptoPH/

Oh wow. That's quite a lot higher than I thought.

Genuinely curious.. I haven't tried "partying" in Manila. What were you able to get with ₱1,000-₱2,000? ??? :P

Great a bitcoin advocate in the Philippines and I appreciate on the marketing strategies you are doing to promote bitcoin and cryptocurrency in the Philippines. Hopefully soon we will see bitcoin ATM machines in the major cities here in the Philippines to boost the adaption of cryptocurrency in the market especially to the big malls here in the Philippines.

I am also from the Philippines. When other people from other countries were invited in joining a site they thought thst it is always a scam specially when the people who invited them are filipinos. I think it is our time to alter thei minds that we are all not scammer.

I agreed, most Filipino people in the Philippines believed  that bitcoin was a form of ponzi scheme. And the saddest thing which is most happened was that majority of the opportunist scammer people they used BItcoin as front to their businesses. Especially, if they will connect Bitcoin into MLM or networking
company. So you can't blame them why is like that. But in some other side if you will go deeper into bitcoin it has a good impact to each everyone of us whether individuals or etc.

1,000-2,000 is definitely a lot cheaper than I thought; and 3 to 4 hours is a long time. Well, 1,000-2,000 pesos is a lot higher than the minimum wage I guess so that makes sense.

Unfortunately I don't think bitcoin ATM's help a lot. Bitcoin ATM's won't necessarily get people to use it(note the humongous fees). It's good publicity, I guess?

All of the Filipinos involved with cryptocurrency are all thankful that we have coins.ph here as this is the best way so far to convert Bitcoin and other famous alts to the local currency and have the money delivered to our bank accounts and/or remittance centers all over the country. had there been no exchange like this then it can get so difficult to be doing business with cryptocurrency here in the Philippines. Right now, Bitcoins remains to be attached to many scams in the past and I assumed even ongoing scams right now...just because those scams were then using Bitcoin as the medium to get in and to cash-out or basically the medium of exchange for those programs. Hence, we have the Bitcoin scams but no dollar scams even if there had been many scams before that used dollar as the exchange...or peso for that matter. However, eventually people will get educated with cryptocurrency and many can come to appreciate the many benefits of this new trending technology though this can be taking a lot of time most especially since many people here lost money when the entered Bitcoin at a higher price and then sold them when things are already in the dip.

The leader of the philipines is unconventional, especially with his kill a drug dealer laws. Has he fully embraced crypto currencies or has he simply not made it illegal so people can still trade?

It's actually only one of two countries that I haven't visited in Southeast Asia, but I know a lot of people from there - in person and professionally. As mentioned above, one gets the feeling that Bitcoin is hugely associated with MLM or get-rich-quick scams in the Philippines, but not really more so than in neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia. But that's not so much Bitcoin's fault. There's actually a known "ring" of people operating in these 3 countries and more who've been cycling HYIPs since the 1990s... Bitcoin's just the latest mode of payment.

For me, the appeal of Bitcoin to overseas workers (their remittance still PH's largest GDP contributor) is its original premise. Direct transfer of money, fast, cheap. Up to 2 years ago though, Bitcoin wasn't the preferred choice of remittance, at least in countries I've worked in. They of course don't use Moneygram or WU anymore, but they've got far cheaper options. Here where I live now, I know a PH shop where you can send up to EUR 500 home for a flat rate of EUR 5. It's still a lot more in percentage than Bitcoin... but to buy Bitcoin and have someone else at home sell it, you end up losing more.

If by unconventional you mean awesome, then I agree. They don't call me Rad Rody for nothing. Donald Trump stole my style, by the way.

What's a crypto currency? Sounds sneaky. Must be used by the Communists or something.

OK this has been exhausting, back to sleep.

What is cryptocurrency interest like amongst young people in the Philippines?
Are Philippines government interested in creating a coin of there own?
What exchanges are mostly patronized by crypto users in the Philippines?
Is there any form of ban what so ever placed on cryptocurrency in the Philippines?

I wouldn't doubt it. When I first moved in to my apartment in Pampanga (PI), my neighbor saw me looking at a bitcoin chart, and told me he invests in bitcoin too, showed me something called Trade Coin Club. He talked about promised returns so I took about 15 minutes to look into it, and sure enough, its a Ponzi scheme that is now pretty much bust. He lost several hundred thousand pesos no doubt, but couldn't admit it at the time.

Instead of thanking me for explaining it to him, he bought a German Shepard the next day that he kept on a 3 foot chain outside his door. It barked all fucking day. Fucking asshole.

The most devious part about the whole Trade Coin Club thing was he had been recruited by a member at his church! I really do understand why Filipinos have a hard time trusting each other.


If you have a verified Coins.ph account, you can cash out BTC at the Cebuana remittance place for a fee of 3-5%. They also recently started an agreement with Palawan Pawnshop.

Another interesting thing is you can "cash in" pesos for BTC using these multi-function touchscreen machines at most 7-Elevens. So, the need for a physical exchanger is kind of bypassed so long as there's a 7-Eleven nearby.

Cryptocurrencies in the Philippines are pretty much neither legal nor illegal. The government is just ignoring it for now as far as I know.

Like I said previously, it's mostly an investment. Interest was definitely high in November-December last year, but now that a good number of people lost money in the bear market, the interest has died down quite a bit.

Oh god no. None as of now, at least. Hopefully they wouldn't go the Maduro route.

• Coins.ph for fiat <-> crypto, for bills payments, and for mobile load. Coins.ph is heavily underappreciated.
• Binance for the traders

None as of now at least. They're just cracking down on the ponzi schemes.

Great thread, nice to see some real discussion.


I'm guessing you've had to go hard on the "report to moderator" button to keep it this clean.

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Where I live in Canada actually has nearly a 50% filipino population. Most have been her less than 3 years, they've come over for work and tend to stick around and bring their families over after a few years. The culture difference is neat, group everything, and super friendly/helpful.

I did try at one point to establish a connection in the Phillipines to create a Fiat/BTC money transfer for back home. Never did gt it going as some people here had those thoughts of scams or Ponzi, and others it was just tough to go through the language barrier. It did make me think that this is a great use for BTC to help people trying to send funds back home while working abroad.

You're welcome! I'd figure that I'd spend a bit of time to create my own topic to bring a bit of life here.  :D

Wow. I knew there are a lot of filipinos in Canada(as I know a good number of people there), but I didn't know it was somewhere around 50%.

In my opinion, if you were to push through with your plan, I suggest that you don't even advertise it as a platform that uses bitcoin. Just keep bitcoin hidden and working on the back end.

Philippines government are recognized bitcoin. Philippines government are open minded about the new technologies of cryptocurrency, the advocate of bitcoin here are truly appreciated and the strategies are so great, hopefully that one day we see bitcoin atm machine here in the Philippines .

Do they actually? Also, can you name some bitcoin/cryptocurrency "advocates" in the Philippines?

Actually, bitcoin ATMs has been present in the Philippines for years already.

Well not all of canada has the same distribution. My town has a large plant that has hired and brought over a lot of filipino workers.

Pretty big community in the largest city near us to. Best part for me is i absolutely live the food.

Yeah for now I've given up on the idea locally. I think its an idea that has legs in the future maybe. Either way I'd want to be upfront about the bitcoin aspect at least to try and use knowledge and experience to cut down on the stigma

Informative replies.
Thanks you for this thread.

But it looks like the merchants are still in doubt of using it at this country. Still needs more adoption and people to push it more.
There is not much advertisement about it and I have seen the local news making some mistakes into how they report scams that are using bitcoin.
They forget it is a currency and not the scammer itself for there is no human behind the bitcoin technology.  ;D
I will be looking at this thread.  ;)

Which food specifically?  :P Also, how are the people?

Dude I bet someone who made a money transmitter company(which uses bitcoin in the back-end) in the Philippines, that has low fees is going to be decently rich. There are LOTS of overseas filipino workers or "OFWs" that are sort of forced to use current money transmitters with like 10% fees or such. If they learn that there's a way to send money with smaller fees, boi that's gonna boom.

I'd figure. I really should've made this topic self-moderated. 🤦‍♂️

For those who really know about bitcoin, welp, I'm pretty sure they don't like the volatility; taking note that a lot of people are in poverty and aren't willing to lose more money due to volatility.

Really? What has the news been about? They thought bitcoin was a scam company or something? lmao. Nothing surprising though, everything's about the money in the Philippines. Fuck knowledge LOL.

Trust me, it's a Southeast Asia thing 100%. Filipinos find these things at a church, Malaysians, Indonesians, Thais, they find it at a Buddhist temple or at a mosque. I've seen HYIP pamphlets just stuck on the notice board at a mosque, and the name of the local imam stamped on it for further contact. They add Bitcoin, they add "free" they add interest rates and some random quote about religion and you've got a divine HYIP with Bitcoin. They'll make a lot of money cheating pensioners, and then when it collapses they pretend they were also tricked and that it wasn't God's will after all.


It's still a tad expensive at 3% though! I know Alipay's targeting Philippine nationals in the US for remittance with their own crypto, and I'm sure if they looked very hard in the Gulf countries, plus the rest of SEA, they'd have a huge market. Problem is as this thread seems to concur, Bitcoin's got a terrible association with get-rich-quick schemes in PH.

Man I could eat Adobo anything, so good. Overall it's given me an appreciation for the sweet and savory meat/stew dishes. The best/worst was the very addictive pork spring rolls, had to seek help last year to stop shoving them in my face.... now I'm getting hungry wonder that the special is today.

The people are super friendly, and polite. I feel bad as I think a lot of the new comers are afraid of insulting someone or doing some small thing wrong. It tends to put them in the mindset almost of a class system, I know I get way more Sir's than I deserve, but things tend to become way less formal after a few months when they finally get a chance to breathe and realize they don't have to worry so much.

AFA the money transmitting goes, I'm sure it would do well. I'd have to look back at it but I was surprised by the lack of options out there apart from western union; especially for a fast transfer. To make a go if it you definitely need an office in the Phillipines to handle the cash dispersals, as I've heard it can be tricky to get new accounts tied in with coins.ph and your banking info. That was one major hurdle was trying to explain how they could get their funds on the other end.

So reading the posts, if I summarize:
- Citizens aren't really using Bitcoin other than people who invest and scammer with MLM. What do you think is the percentage of bitcoiners who are really using BTC as it's supposed to be? Is there a real demand for BTC?
- Your government is ok with cryptos as long the business is legit.

My question is:
If you have enough capital to start with, what kind of business would you start in your country? Of course, I mean something profitable and not necessarily something big.

I really can't give a number, but a very small minority for sure. I personally don't know a single person that actually uses bitcoin for store-of-value or as a currency. Everything is pretty much "yo invest in bitcoin it might go up in price etc etc". Yes, a lot of people use Coins.ph to pay for mobile load and to pay for bills, but I think most are just depositing straight to their Coins.ph fiat wallet rather than cashing in through bitcoin. You pretty much can use Coins.ph's features without touching BTC.


I really don't have a business idea on the top of my head currently. What I have an idea on is just how I would execute it.

• If you want to target a larger demographic, prices should be low-average simply because poverty rates are pretty high here.
• Utilize Facebook ads. People in the Philippines are really really active on Facebook; and they love liking and sharing stuff. Not using Facebook ads is a huge waste.
• Befriend your customers(pretty much common sense but yea). Some filipinos like hanging out on random places, so if you get people to hang out on your store, quite a big win.

I read the government is not so supportive for cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology. However, I can notice that the Philippines has a strong community in the crypto space and many people are involved in this industry.

1. What is the reason of this?

And secondly, many countries involving mine have some difficulties of buying crypto (fiat to crypto and vice versa is kind of regulated).

2. What is the gateaway for you to buy your crypto?

I think they just simply don't care. Politicians are corrupt to start with, so as long as there's more taxes, then it's probably a win for them.

It completely depends on your country; but I think you wouldn't have much trouble if you're willing to submit KYC/AML information. Also, why not use LocalBitcoins?

Like I said in the main topic, people in the Philippines mainly use Coins.ph; sometimes Abra.

I heard that Coins.ph has been acquired by Go-Jek (the major player in the ride-hailing business in Indonesia).[1] Does this have any effect on how the Philippines use the services?

The acquisition amount is crazy according to the report, around $72 million.

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[1] https://www.investinblockchain.com/go-jek-acquires-coins-ph/

Oh wow. I had no idea.

Anyway, the article was posted just 23 hours ago, so probably the acquisition of coins.ph was probably just recently. I think it's too early to say if some things are going to be different or not. If something would actually change, I hope that it's for the better.

About the $72 million price, I'm honestly not surprised. Coins.ph has a HUGE userbase, and saying huge is a big understatement. It's like having Coinbase without a single competitor.

I saaw some news that coins.ph was being bought at 75 MILLION pesos or USD i am not sure.

But is this true?

One thing more, what is the reason why Cebuana Lhuiller will not accept cash-outs from COINS.PH? Will start on March 2019.

I sure hope so too. I'm really really fine with the current state of Coins.ph. I really don't know anything about GoJek to have an idea on what things could potentially change though.

And yea, there are competitors, but not a single one of them comes close to Coins.ph.  I don't think any of the competitors actually does advertisement and marketing in the Philippines. Coins.ph though? People dig the P50 referral bonus. LOL

I'm a little bit surprised that you don't know about it. It's true that the article was posted 23 hours ago but IIRC I read it since days ago (not sure if my memory is correct though), found another link: http://fintechnews.sg/28130/mobilepayments/go-jek-coins-ph-blockchain-acquire-grab/. In fact, it has been discussed on Indonesia Blockchain Network TG group since Friday last week. But yeah, I think it's way too early to tell the differences as they might still process the acquisition details.


I think GoJek won't do that. They've shown a lot of interest of penetrating the Philippines market, which has failed many times because they don't get the acceptance from the government according to the news that I read. They're smart, starting from a small ride-hailing business with only 50 or so drivers to thousands at this moment. So I don't think they'll do poor strategies like increasing the fee or something like that. With their major competitor, Grab, has taken a few steps ahead of them, I think they'll let Coins.ph operate as usual first before introducing new things and policy.

Though Philippines is a small country, the adoption that has happened in the country is very big. By the same time more scams too got the eyes of common people which lead people to loss hope on cryptocurrency. Compared to more other countries what Philippines have achieved through cryptocurrency is big. The government isn't that supportive, but people trust in it and continue using it with awareness about the need of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

How widespread is the take up of Bitcoin outside of the capital area- I am thinking Cebu, Davao etc?

Well, I'm surprised that the news isn't that widespread. I guess people here don't care that much. And yea, that's an Indonesian telegram group so it's really unlikely for me to be in such groups.

I disagree a bit. Bitcoin's name is indeed widespread, but with adoption? Decent, but not that much.

I really have no idea as I've never been in those cities. But yea, as long as there's a 7-Eleven in a certain city, chances are that there are a few people that are using Coins.ph

im also from Philippines and it is a good start and good step for promoting the bitcoin as the new crypto currency in the Philippines because as the small and third world country technology is very hard to have and because we stuck in old tradition that many believe bitcoin is not a good for us especially our parents and many also believe that this is a scam. it is nice to have a first step towards to a new generation.

I think the Philippines can catch up with some advancement in both cryptocurrency and blockchain technology with other countries. The Philippines has already allowed some fintechs and other blockchain companies to establish their business in the philippines and an economic zone north of the country has been chosen for this kind of business. Some crypto exchanges has been given their own licenses by central bank to operate in this southeast asian nation.

I see so many philippine investors in Bitcoin and Altcoins.  So my question for you is, where do most of you hear about cryptocurrency?  It seems like every project has many Philippine members and this is great.

A lot of filipinos are into cryptocurrencies simply due to the potential money to be made via airdrops and bounties. Why does airdrops and bounties attract filipinos a lot? Same answer as why airdrops and bounties attracts a lot of Indians. Simply because both are 3rd world countries whereas poverty is really high.

People in the Philippines mostly hear about cryptocurrencies due to a lot of referral links being spammed on Facebook lol.

I'm curious about how you personally feel about people who are skeptics and all they believe is the negative news that surrounds Bitcoin. What can you say about that?

Personally, I have encountered a lot of people who are like that, and it somewhat makes me feel shy or just wants to skip that topic because they don't understand it or don't want to. Just a random thought. Thanks in advance!

Actually, I'm also looking for an article regarding this about few minutes ago but I can't find one. But as far as I remembered, I already read a post about this in our local board section and what I've understand is that Cebuana Lhuiller will focused more on XRP that's why they will no longer accept btc withdrawals soon. For me it makes no sense because why they will remove one of their sources of revenue ???
We can say that Palawan Pawnshop is inferior since it's new in their field of industry but when it comes to LBC, Nah I don't think so. It is also a competitive remittance center/delivery service provider in our country, you can guarantee a quality service from them.

Well, all I can say that it's very unfortunate and very annoying that people act, think, and come up with conclusions this way. To be completely fair though, it's not only the filipinos, but pretty much everyone. Instead of them actually doing their own research on a specific topic/issue to form their opinion in a more educated manner, they simply just make conclusions based on the headlines of a certain news or news article alone. So, yea. Really not surprised how most people(not only filipinos) think that bitcoin is a scam or something that's being used solely by criminals.

Damn, you really nailed every single point. I'm also from the Philippines. I don't really have any question for you, I am just amazed at how you explained how our people see Bitcoin. Scams are everywhere and that it is spreading like a wildfire here. You are also right about the usability of coins.ph, it really helped a lot of people because of its features.

It's amazing how people can be really like that. I think people are wired that way, to be somewhat closed-minded to something they don't understand or do not WANT to follow. It's just natural I guess. I see that a lot in social media where they only comment on what the title is and not checking the real contents. I think that's why everywhere we look there is some trending news that is not real but still being spread because of the vulgar way it was displayed.

That is somewhat to called a trick and to make people appreciate it. Hiding the reality will meant to be resulting not good for us, instead it will triggered a huge fire burning the trust.
Philippines is one of the good supporter for crypto,  and so people love doing it. Many lives have changes and so do I. Hope it could be a mirror for other countries, helping the community to uplift their way of living.

I really wouldn't call the Philippines a "good supporter" for cryptocurrencies. Like I said, most people buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies solely due to the potential profit they can earn from it(though there's really nothing wrong with that). I've honestly never spoke to a single person that's actually passionate on bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general; mostly are just buy this buy that because it could rise in price.

I agree with your statement that in general, people do not support cryptocurrencies in a way that they are going to use it every day. I think almost everyone wants to profit, especially in the Philippines. Some of the people probably think of it as a get rich quick scheme. I just thought of that there are a lot of people who have power in the government that let businesses be supported by crypto, not knowing everything behind it but just allowing different companies to do their thing, which is not bad but has an effect with people, I guess.

Maybe if you have met people like me for instance, then we could see how much we could probably talk about, knowing that we have been in the cryptocurrency space for a long time now, compared to other people who are just starting in here. I have invited some of my friends her, ebut some of them didn’t get to be attached to the forum in a way that it becomes a habit like mine. It’s fun conversing with other people with the same interests as you. You could learn a lot from them, and it’s mutually beneficial.

Don't get me wrong though, earning money is great; because who doesn't want money right? But unfortunately there's little to no interest outside monetary reasons.

Hah. Unfortunately I haven't met other passionate people yet. I would definitely love to meet people that are also into this space, but at the same time, I really wouldn't like to publicly disclose that I hold bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general. The last thing I would want is to be held at gunpoint for my bitcoin LOL.

I understand some people want it for the money. It is great to earn money and at the same time do what you want, like interacting here in this forum.

That's overthinking of you, in my opinion. I guess that's the purpose of adding multilayered security and probably putting backup and providing a great password could help you protect that. I think it's not that bad to say that you have some cryptocurrency. Maybe you are saying that because you are a BTC Whale :o

Maybe that's what becomes a dilemma for us, behind the increasing number of people who enter the world of bitcoin or crypto. Most are still thinking about profits or "sudden riches". Maybe only a few really think about the actual functions of bitcoin or crypto

I'm referring more to a sort of a sort of criminal breaking into my house doing a sort of "open that ledger Nano S and send me your funds or I blow your brains out" method. Definitely very very unlikely for that to happen right now due to bitcoin not 100% known by everyone, but I'm definitely not taking any chances whatsoever.

Hah. I wish.

I guess so. When I read this, what I remembered was the VeraCrypt. It's a locking software where you could input a fake password, and open a fake folder. Maybe it could be implemented by different wallet softwares like Electrum. Not sure if they have that already. I understand with what you are thinking about. Do you have any resources where it happened already? Probably in the US.

That's what they ALL say.  8)

Ledger wallets has a sort of similar feature to this; the 25th seed phrase. Very useful feature indeed.

I don't have a news source for such a crime unfortunately(or fortunately, lol); but instances like this wouldn't definitely be farfetched from happening, especially as time goes as bitcoin gains more recognition. But yea, definitely most likely to happen in the US and countries that has higher bitcoin adoption.

Man, I honestly wouldn't be in the Philippines right now if I had a huge stack of bitcoin. :P

What is the development with the CEZA now?
Bitcoin is really getting more popular with Filipino people and mostly in age 20s.
I saw in supermarkets and fastfoodchain that they are accepting GCASH and PAYMAY! why there is no COINS.PH?

If you're referring to the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, then I have zero idea.

Definitely. Slowly turning into a cashless society indeed; though people barely use it. I really haven't seen a single person pay using GCASH and PayMaya on physical stores. Why don't they accept Coins.ph? No idea. It's most likely just that they don't have negotiations yet, or Coins.ph probably hasn't attempted to contact Robinsons stores yet.

Just want to know, do your government legalize crypto ?
Is there any supermarket or restaurant already accept crypto ?

How is your people's response about crypto in the future ? ( especially when current market is on downtrending )

Hmm, I haven’t tried buying a ledger. I was asking about Trezor about a year ago on who has that wallet because I’m thinking of getting that. But in the end, I just end up using one of my old laptops to be used as a cold storage.

I hope no crime of such happens, but knowing here in the Philippines, there would be people who would be capitalizing on that, knowing if you hodl bitcoin or something. I guess I understand what you mean.

Same feeling. Or even better yet, I wouldn’t be working my ass off if have that kind of Bitcoin too.  :o

Already answered this on the main post on this topic.

There's a very small number that do, but I'm quite sure barely anyone pays with it.

Well, prices are down so most people are out. In the future though? It depends a lot on what the price is in the near future. Like I said, only a very small minority are actually truly interested and passionate with bitcoin. Most are just in the space for monetary reasons,; shilling referral links and stuff on social media.

The state of bitcoin in the Philippines are just fine although there were those who are using it to scam other people, it is still the number one in the get rich quick scheme list. However, the government are really serious trying to pinned those scammers to avoid more future scams involving bitcoin. I just don't know if it is because bitcoin is slowly climbing to be known or some wants to tag it as scam also. It's sad because when the news hit the TV news, they are saying bitcoin itself is a scam while it is the scammers itself is the scam who are using bitcoin to scam.  I hope it won't happen again.

Well, you pretty much just rephrased almost everything I said in the main topic. Thanks?

I also come from the Philippines, that was I've noticed too even my friends they did not care the Bitcoin currency that have a good technology, they much preferred to convert fiat than holding and waiting when the market recovering from the downtrend and yes, one of the main reason is monetary purposes.

Those people who are passionate in Bitcoin are a real crypto enthusiast, they know much better Bitcoin is profitable in the future. (I belong to this group of people).

You're right mate, as far as I know, they preferred to use Ripplenet product than Bitcoin blockchain since Bitcoin is not centralized to our government. Maybe they've to care for their reputations as the best remittance industry and transfer their partnership to Ripplenet Blockchain.

Well it's really inevitable for people to be skeptical about things. And I agree with you, they're being skeptic but they don't really do any research to prove things first before making a conclusion. It's just hard to explain things when people tend to believe on what they think is right and what they want to believe. Since most people think that way, other will also think the same without really trying to understand it.

I agree that no one wants to disclose such information about how many money he holds etc. However, I am not afraid to tell anybody that I am involved in cryptocurrencies. I think it is better to say that in order to attract more people into the ecosystem. Is there any specific reason you are afraid of? For example, was there any incident in the Philippines similar to this event?

I don't think there are any documented events concerning sort of robberies and bitcoin/cryptocurrencies, but anyway, here are my reasons:

1. Like I said a few times in this thread, to prevent any sort of robbery or theft.
2. If bitcoin or cryptocurrencies would skyrocket in price once again in the future, I wouldn't want people I know going to me asking for money or as well call, "balato". One of the worst filipino traditions in my opinion.
3. Like point #2, if bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general would rise again in price, I really wouldn't want people to think of me as a financially wealthy or a "rich" person; as I love going on walks in random places in cities and going on commutes.
4. I wouldn't want to be affiliated with bitcoin or cryptocurrencies if ever the Philippine government would implement a ban on bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.

Point #1 and #4 is very unlikely, but then again, I'm NOT going to take any chances, knowing that my family could potentially be involved. Better safe than sorry. I only pretty much disclose that I'm into bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general to very close friends of mine, and only when necessary.

Plus, you will get more family members and friends. Filipinos have this attitude that when someone is famous or have something in life, they tend to say He/She is my family member and the old family free will just pop up, but, they are not even there during your off seasons in life. Even just a maid by some famous celebrities Filipinos make it as a headline.

Talking about bitcoin or cryptocurrency to other people here: some will just say it is too low and kind of negative about it right now. When the price skyrocket? It is too high now, I can’t even afford to get into crypto world. Even worst, they will say you’re lucky you get into crypto while it is low. Come on, we already told you before to buy now - No one listen.

It has been said that “Be your own bank” and use crypto. It only means you’re 100% responsible for your holdings not a bank, any government or any third party. People are not ready to go decentralization and 100% ownership – yes, when it is mooning. It is not going to the moon or facing problems – then where’s the government, company, refunds, etc. What people forgot, company or exchanges is not the owner of bitcoin or cryptocurrency. It is running on its own blockchain, distributed to thousands -  it is decentralized with no central ownership or a server, it’s all people’s computers = nodes. Which only proves that not only Filipinos having these doubts on losing money and where to refund it, it is just one major problem facing cryptocurrency revolution as a whole.

Exactly. Definitely one of the worst filipino traditions. So much people and "family and friends" asking for "balato" that you might as well give away everything you've earned. Hence I really prefer financial anonymity(for a lack of a better word).

Yea. Experienced something similar. After talking for a few minutes describing bitcoin and what it's for, as a friend of mine who was looking interested asked about it. Ended up getting a sort of "when moon" question.

In my opinion, the current state of bitcoin here has gone quiet. People has lost the excitement about it and some who I knew that praised it before has already exited out. I still see some articles of some groups that focuses on good projects like nem and loyal coin but they don't seem to make a lot of people interested anymore.

Forgot to mention this. I'm actually surprised there has been sort of development "workshops" last year concerning NEM. I've seen a few people with NEM shirts too. Looks like they're roaming around countries trying to get people to the blockchain industry; which is nice I guess. I'm not sure what NEM is for though; haven't really done my research on it yet.

How can I use BitCoin to finally defeat the Communists?

does the Government have any plan to promote BTC to be used as your national currency soon?

I have been using this app coins. ph for more than a year. It is very convenient and I did not experience any problem with it. It is one way showing that bitcoin is not banned here in our country. Filipinos see bitcoin in different opinion, but for me it is definitely a good investment. I usually used in for my prepaid loads and I enjoy the discount.

Woops. Sorry for the late reply.

Due to bitcoin being very young and the volatility still being very high, I heavily doubt it. Also, were talking about the government here. What are the chances that they would announce bitcoin, which is something they cant control, to be the national currency? Less than 1%.

...for now. Ever heard of the MtGox hack, the Bitfinex hack, the Cryptopia hack, etc? Don't let history repeat itself. Store your funds on a non-custodial wallet.

Maybe I've missed something but what's so special about bitcoin in the Philippines that we are not able to find in the rest of the world? And who is an OP?
It seems like there must be something special and unique to make them create an AMA here.

Here in Philippines let's talk about public perception. Filipinos are wise people. They are so realistic they want a proof that someone will become successful because of bitcoin. So most of us did not believe in a small amount of time. In terms of usability I think now coins.ph is become hard proces because many of remittance center where we can get an bitcoin cash in are now off their tie up at coins.ph. And in terms of regularization? All we know that this is impossible in type of government that we have.

What is your preferred method of cashing in and cash out method? I know someone who considered investing but the fees kinda turned him off. He was willing to cash in 10k+ in one go and his bank don't offer such option.

Another one, have you done f2f buying/selling before and how safe is it? What should someone planning to do it do to avoid getting ripped?

It's not that bitcoin is literally different in the rest of the world, it's that each country differs in terms of bitcoin adoption and public perception.

OP: Original Poster

I heavily disagree with this. Majority of the filipinos I know and the filipino bitcoin/crypto investors on social media simply buy in just because they think they're going to get rich, even without actually knowing even a slight bit of what bitcoin is and what it does. The "proof" they want to hear is the opinions of permabulls or "moon boys" on social media.

I personally cash in through people I know and somewhat trust on other forums. And yes, the fees on Coins.ph are quite significant. Suggest the "someone" you know to use LocalBitcoins instead.

I personally haven't. Not a single buyer/seller in the city I'm in unfortunately. If you want to be safe, simply do the transaction on a secure place like a mall, or outside a bank where there's security guards with guns. Also, if transacting with big amounts of money, I'd make sure I have a car to use. I wouldn't suggest taking a tricycle or a jeepney after transacting big amounts.

Since Bitcoin/Cryptocurrency isnt that heavily regulated in the country but taxes do still bothers me.I've been on crypto for how many years and all crypto earnings goes thru my bank account converted
from my Coins.ph account and now they go already starting to ask on where those earning came from.

Philippines government doesnt really care too much about crypto but transactions made and all things that can sipped out taxes will really be a pain in the ass.Would they possibly
come to that situation?

Yea. I think it's less due to them asking because of bitcoin, but more of simply asking where your income is coming from. I don't think they wouldn't care what bitcoin is, as long as they can tax it. 🤷‍♂️ I suggest using less of Coins.ph, and probably a bit more of peer-to-peer through LocalBitcoins. If you could be able to transact in person via cash, then better.

The exchanges usually have a tier structure for limits when people adhere to different levels of their KYC/AML regulations. So, they might give you a withdrawal limit of say $5000 if you provide your ID and if you give 3 months Bank statements, then you qualify for a higher tier withdrawal limit of say $50 000. <Is this applicable there?>

I know LocalBitcoins have also jumped on the KYC/AML bandwagon lately, so no more pseudo anonymity for using Bitcoin on their platform.  ::)

Im also from the country of the Philippines and also a Filipino and I think if we talking about the country who are accpeting to the bitcoin and even the government accept bitcoin Philippines is one of the best example but not 100 percent agree to the bitcoin.
There is a lot of Filipino people who are become successful because they already invest their money to the bitcoin.

Unfortunately I don't know a lot of people who are into bitcoins and those that do probably don't have that much bitcoins anyway. And yeah, it feels unsafe doing any transactions these days. I bring someone with me if I need to withdraw any significant amount.

Thanks for the response, will keep these in mind.

I agreed on you pal, since the time was started that Bitcoin became trend in the Philippines lots of MLM company in online  the opportunist scammer used Bitcoin as their front to look for another victim to steal the money of the investors. This has been happened so many year since 2016 and aside from that there more than one exchange now here that Bitcoin accepted as mode of payment and such as Coins.ph, Abra, and Bitbit.

I personally haven't. I've only used mostly Abra in the past. Withdraws just take a week or so, but this was more than a year ago. I assume it would probably be a lot faster now(hopefully).

Yeap. I personally only know 1 person that I can trust with bitcoin transactions. It's just difficult if I needed cash urgently. Try out looking for people to transact with on LocalBitcoins, but yea. You'd still have to go through a 3rd party unfortunately. It really sucks, but as of now our options are really really limited.

Bitcoin in the Philippines was being tagged as scam investment. It was found out that people knowledgeable in  bitcoin use it to collect money from the crowd to which until now it was still unsettled and that individual who made the tagged the bitcoin as scam was already jailed.

It was found that the man collecting money from the crowd use it to buy equipments for.mining bitcoin. And sonce that man could not return the money then he was imprison.

Well, the state of bitcoin in the Philippines is the same to most countries. Just ordinary things.

Specify it bro, that's the point of this post.

Very nice topic, i was surprised with the Coins.ph company working just like Coinbase with a more vast options for everyone in Philippines.

You also said that there are not so many Philippines using Bitcoins, still i am guessing more Philippines will join Crypto world just because of that which is a good thing ;)

Ok, my bad. Many people here in the Philippines are becoming aware of the potential of bitcoin that is why there are now stores who are accepting bitcoin as a payment method. Me personally, I haven't taught that bitcoin can even use in payments before but now, I am using this crypto exchange site (https://darbfinance.com/?=crowd) that can be used in online businesses, and even physical transactions! The site is good and the transaction speed is very fast. Other than that is many people also do hodling here and join bounties which they can earn money. Well, there are some who do scams but people here unlike before are now becoming smart not to be scammed.

Good job OP, you seem to have the right knowledge to represent the Philippines here for other people to know also about the crypto standing.
AFAIK, there has been to guidelines yet on how to treat crypto, it's not regulated so people in the Philippines have all the freedom to completely enjoy their income in crypto.

bittrex international and kraken international can wire you fiat if you have a USD bank account in the Philippines, they have better buy and sell rates than coins.ph. so far only 1000$ or more is a good minimum cash out option because of bank fees.

The use of bitcoin in the Philippines has made rapid progress due to government policies that support transactions using bitcoin, so that public perceptions are very positive.
They do it for investment, trade or for payments where it makes it easier when traveling abroad because transactions can be done directly and peer to peer.
Merchants who receive payments with bitcoin are increasing because the Philippines is also a busy tourist destination.

Aside from that, thru coins.ph people were able to use it as a remitance service which is really convenient. Family members that are working outside the country can actually send their remittances with just a click, instead of using banks or remitance company as a middle-man which might take a couple of days.

I have a question I want to give!
In the Philippines, are all ICOs censoring and licensing before making promotions? Also, are participating banks sponsoring ICOs projects like the information given on internet blogs?
A funny question: Can I use Bitcoin to pay 100% of the costs if I travel to your country?

Then might as well you should have a business to backed up your income or lessen the withdrawals from banks and do more in remittance, perhaps fees don't bother you.

No as for this moment and yet that will surely far to happen. There's only a little percentage of Filipinos that know cryptos while the rest perceive bitcoin as nothing but a scam. We have here coins.ph that lets you convert btc to php but that wouldn't enough to say that you can 100% use btc here. It's more like a online payment but if you will travel around you really need a fiat.

I ignored this topic for a while, I didn't know this topic was still getting replies LOL.

Not sure if I understood your question clearly, but regulations concerning ICOs in the Philippines are pretty much blurry as of the moment: https://cointelegraph.com/news/philippine-securities-regulator-postpones-ico-regulation-release

Not that I know of, no.

Well, you currently can't pay for everything through bitcoin per se, but you can easily sell your BTC through Coins.ph or Abra quite quickly, and simply use that money to transact to merchants instead.

Want to add something about Bitcoin in the Philippines.
Some of the people here taking advantage of using crypto, they use it for some fraud in scams here in Philippines.
These group of people is destroying the image of cryptocurrency especially the Bitcoin in the Philippines.

I found 3 advisories from SEC Philippines which involved in cryptocurrencies:

1.
https://i.imgur.com/RLU3Pic.png
This another so-called company claiming that they are registered with SEC as a corporation but it discovered that they are not.
They also claim that they are using the money they collected in trading cryptocurencies.

Read more: http://www.sec.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2018Advisory_Cryptoexpert.pdf

2.
https://i.imgur.com/KVWTtnL.png
This is also like the first one which more on passive income, holding their coin and you will earn profits passively.
They registered with SEC for only wholesale activities but they conducted a solicit investment to the public.
Read more: http://www.sec.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2018Advisory_Purepound.pdf

3.
https://i.imgur.com/WuDJu5m.png
One of my college friends introduced this before to me. They are more on promoting this coin to everybody, like something a passive investment, when you just hold their coin, you will earn profits.
Read more: http://www.sec.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018Advisory_FreedomTradersClubamdPloutosCoin.pdf

The Philippines in a nutshell. A lot of lazy people that are looking for get-rich-quick schemes instead of actually working hard for them to achieve their goals. This is why we have a lot of pyramid schemes popping up and being advertised everywhere looking at you, frontrow. It's both sad and pathetic.

and recently there was a news regarding four investment scam that was offering "double your money within a week", sometimes it is not the scammer that should blame because it is the greediness of the investors, they want to double their investments within a week even the central bank cant do that.

I hate to admit it but it's true there are plenty of lazy people here in the Philippines that wants to instantly be rich or wealthy .
And it is right sometimes it is not the scammers to be blame it is their greediness for money,
They would fall for an investment that is obviously a scam.

I agree with your opinion. These get-rich-quick schemes are mostly found in one of the popular social media and many people have been victim of it. Filipinos, especially the young ones, are also fond of this popular social media and many of them are already victimized by these online investment schemes that uses cryptocurrency like bitcoin as of their mode of payment. Bitcoin is getting popular in the philippines but a regulation might be needed to protect people from these scams.

In the philippines, people in this country is still lack of knowlegde about crypto or in bitcoins even some of the user of coins.ph they do not know what is really the use of it. Just like a online wallet that you can deposit money and can cash our thru remittance and etc. But I don't quite see some progress now in this country that bitcoin or crypto is acceptable as a payment or usable maybe in future they will.

Pretty much. I hate to sort of "victim blame", but seriously, the scams are too obvious that you'd need to be extra greedy and extra delusional to fall for those scams. Some even as bad as claiming to pay you 30% of your deposit every day. Like what.

Yet these schemes took advantage of people's greediness and ignorance and it worsen the situation by recruiting more people. They didn't realize that they're just making more rich those who is ahead of them, just imagine those years when networking boomed.

Seriously yeah and their products serves as their front, like people didn't realize that in order to earn decently you need to invite more and not to just sell those products. *sigh >>

Well, same as the growth and increased usage increased is the scams in the name of bitcoin around Philippines. Greed always accompanies when something has got value, and same is the reason for increased scam. As Philippines is one of the country with good support for bitcoin on the Asian continent supporting more online services with bitcoin as payment and more complaints were recorded with fraudulent activities in the name of bitcoin.

Pretty much. Without the actual products, it's a textbook definition of a scam. The products are just the mirages that makes it legal. It's honestly looks like a flaw with the law and with regulations. The same schemes are running in some countries, even the United States as far as I know.

Sorry to go off-topic but this is a question about the Phillipines in general. Is it common for people to have let's say peculiar names by Western Standards. Here's an example "Princess Mary" , my wife said Mary and the dad corrected her it's Princess Mary. I had  a good chuckle later on, as I'd never come across this before. We have a fairly large community here from the Phillipines, and I've heard a few other examples.

In the Philippines, having peculiar names are somewhat a common thing. I know someone who is called Baby, just because. Not because she's still a baby, but naming her as Baby is like that. I saw a meme (which I think is true) where people have named their child "Star Margarine" just because also or they like that product so much. People like to call names here also that is somewhat close to what your name sounds like, or something like that.

I think people should think about the future of their children if they are naming their kids like that. Lol

I personally haven't heard of a person with that exact name, but names like that are pretty uncommon in the Philippines. For some reason people here has some weird naming habits. Along with what crwth stated, I met a kid here in the Philippines in the past named Cutie Pie. Like what the hell. The parents are pretty much asking for their kid to be bullied in shool lmao(I hope the kid didn't).

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah it just threw me for a loop. I imagine some kids might be looking for name changes down the road if they wind up going international.

So, how's the trading and the liquidity at Coins Pro? I never liked the fixed pricing in Coins.ph. It is hard to time the buying of BTC at an overseas exchange and sending it to Coins.ph to sell at a higher price. Thank goodness, they also accept Ethereum though.

Coins Pro isn't fully released yet, so you'd have to join the wait list to be able to test things out, so expect the liquidity to be not-so-good. Personally haven't traded using it though, I'm just a little bit too used to USD pricing. The UI looks fine, but seeing PHP prices is just weird and foreign to me.

For now, if you're sending funds to the Philippines via bitcoin, I'd suggest you do it through Abra.com instead. Yes, you can't set your own prices as well, but the prices tend to be better. Probably around 1-2% less cuts compared to Coinsph. Not that big of a difference but it does add up.

Unfortunately, Bitcoin here in the Philippines is known to be used in scams thanks to Mavrodis MMM scheme that scammed a lot of people in the province like in the Visayas and Mindanao Region. However, it is slowly being accepted as a good investment. Just like what happened to me last night at Starbucks when someone saw me browsing at my Binance dashboard, I think there we're 2 or 3 guys passed by who asked how Bitcoin is doing so far or if price of Bitcoin increased. 

It's more of on the television media than social media to be honest(even though there are a lot of scams being spammed on social media). Some people on social media tend to call out these idiotic news on social media, like this one: https://www.facebook.com/manilabulletin/photos/a.147434127984/10158103662047985/

Sure, but the demographic of filipinos that actually know what bitcoin is and is promoting bitcoin in a non-scammy way is very very small. I'd argue that the decently knowledgeable people is even lower than 5% of the bitcoin "enthusiasts" in the Philippines.

The group from Binance Filipino has been going around the Philippines, I haven't attended any of their events yet but its a good way of introducing to the people what Bitcoin or Crytocurrency is all about. This September 21 they are going to Ilocos at Hotel Luna Vigan City. September 28 they are going to Davao at Go Hotels in Lanang. At least this group is not focused in the National Capital Region which is Metro Manila area.

I'm a member too on that facebook group, as I observed on some posts of members especially those newbies they are much eager to earn easy than understanding first how bitcoin works (sad but true, but I understand them, they are still newbies).
This kind of events is quite good for bringing news and adoption for Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in the country, I wish I am able to participate in their events soon, thanks for those dates.

Lol yea. That's pretty much 98% of people in Philippine bitcoin/crypto Facebook groups in general. Majority still think that bitcoin is a moneymaking scheme than what it really is. I don't think I really can blame the people though. Poverty rate is still high, and as well as the percentage of people that aren't lling to do the hard work but instead prefer "easy money".

It is not only in Philippine bit virtually everywhere, poverty rate is increasing and this is showing sign of weakness of the government, it is like they really don't care again about the citizens unlike it used to be in the past, and all they just care about right now are infrastructures and how to beautify the country which make so much sense because when you beautify a country and people are dying of poverty, who would use it?

Let me not digress from the main point now, people are basically just taking the system as money making program like you earlier mentioned, and this is why we are having lots of them being scammed because scammers also are taking advantage of the fact they are desperate about making money to exploit them.

It's all down to their greed, when these sort of newbies are in a hurry for speedy money they throw reason away and no longer perceive what looks too good to be true.
They fall for scammers claiming to double bitcoins, those claiming to sell at a crazily low price than the original price, they even fall for those asking for private keys.

If only knowledge and learning would take prominence first in the minds of these peoplel, then they'll learn more about the bitcoin, increasing their knowledge about the network and making it almost impossible to fall for cheap scam.

Well, we cannot help it, there are lots of scam company that takes advantage of Bitcoin's decentralized nature and exploit it to scam investors.  I have encountered many of them and they really are good in words.  If one is unaware the true nature of Bitcoin and its purpose and usage, they can easily persuade them into joining their investment scam.  There are lots of them lurking around the Philippines network marketing industry.

The main factor for these people why they think Bitcoin is scam is due to the lack of knowledge and first hand experience of losing money after falling to these scam company that exploit Bitcoin.

Yes, it's definitely almost the same where on other countries with high poverty rates like India, but definitely a lot less in more economically healthy countries(compared to 3rd world countries at least) like the United States.

The worst thing is that, even though some(or most?) poor countries might be focusing more or aesthetics of the country than actually helping their citizens, you actually don't see that much advancements. The Philippines' capital, Manila, is a good example of this. Everything's shitty as ever besides business-owned properties. Good 'ol corruption

Are things better with crypto in the Philippines than in the US?

Depends on what aspect.

In terms of public perception, no. Most still look at bitcoin as either a scam or a get-rich-quick scheme. You're lucky to meet a person outside Manila(the Philippines' capital city) that's genuinely interested in bitcoin.

In terms of laws and regulations, I'd say yes. Bitcoin isn't that hot yet on the Philippine government's radar as of now. The US is currently a lot stricter.

In terms of adoption, while the Philippines has Coins.ph which is one great of an app, the US still wins here.

There was an e-peso bill made by some Senator ... I don't know what happened to that. Also, the boxing champion Manny Pacquiao set up his own token or coin, I'm not too sure of the finer details of that. Should be on the news somewhere.

Posted about it the day I had known it was released.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5184218.0
Alot of good points being stated there and also which exchange the token will be trading on.

As I can see,now a days we observe the spreading of the bitcoin currency but not only the bitcoin, also the other currency that also known. As far as i know, our current senator, Manny Pacquiao is releasing his own coins tokens. But i don't think it works here in the Philippines. Also many Filipinos are still using the e wallet such as Coins and other wallet that was introduced to us.Long time ago, bitcoin has been on Philippine news. It said that it is applicable to used like this kind of cryptocurrency.

In fairness, the Government is just neutral in regards to crypto. What I hate is people using crypto as a mean to scam other people by using the word bitcoin investment as their scheme. This makes a bad impression to people who is not really familiar to bitcoin.

Apologies for the late reply. I stopped monitoring this thread when it stopped gaining any responses.

Definitely a very interesting move. But instead of creating another separate and hugely unnecessary cryptocurrency, Pac and the team should've just sticked with existing cryptocurrencies. I'm 95% sure this is just some crypto project by some random team that asked permission from Pac if they can use his name for the project.

Oh definitely. I always wished the government went a lot harder into finding these no-life scammers.

As for the government being neutral, I think it just isn't that big yet for them to actually acknowledge it and somewhat regulate it. My guess that in the next bull run, there will be more laws and regulations concerning bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.