The Philippines pushes back against foreign exchanges, continuing a protectionist streak
David Attlee 33 minutes ago The Philippines pushes back against foreign exchanges, continuing a protectionist streak The Central Bank of the Philippines warns the public against using non-local crypto trading platforms. The pressure on crypto is growing swiftly in the Philippines. After a recent series of controversial moves from the state regulators and local think tanks, the country‘s central bank published a warning to the citizens, discouraging them from engaging in any operations with unregistered or foreign crypto exchanges. The anouncement itself doesn’t sound menacing but taken in the context of accompanying developments, it makes a 112-million nation a restive region for crypto. On Aug.17, The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) published a warning note to the countrys citizens, “strongly urging” them not to deal with Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) that are either unregistered or domiciled abroad. The Bank emphasized that any deals with virtual assets are high-risk activities by themselves, and with foreign platforms, there occurs an additional challenge in enforcing legal recourse and consumer protection. That leaves the public with 19 registered VASPs to conduct their operations on. The list will hardly broaden, at least in the next three years, because a BSP memorandum halted the issue of new VASP licenses from