Philippines Bans Privacy Coins and Tightens Crypto Listing Rules

The Philippines’ central bank, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), has introduced stricter rules on which cryptocurrencies licensed platforms may offer, including an outright ban on privacy coins, as reported by Decrypt.

Under Memorandum M-2026-023, all Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) must put robust due diligence and accreditation procedures in place before listing or enabling trading of any coin or token. The assessment is organised around six pillars: the issuer’s background, market maturity, use cases, transparency and traceability, redemption and reserves, and legal and regulatory compliance.

In practice, platforms must examine ownership structures, audited financial statements, trading volumes, token utility, cybersecurity audits, reserve arrangements, and exposure to money laundering or terrorist-financing risk. The duty does not end at listing. VASPs must keep checking that an asset still meets its original assessment and set thresholds that trigger delisting, removing tokens in cases such as lost liquidity support, issuer insolvency, de-pegging, misleading disclosures, abnormal price movements, or scam involvement.

Crucially, the memorandum prohibits VASPs from listing or supporting anonymity-enhancing assets, the privacy coins designed to obscure transactions and the parties behind them. Tokens offered as securities may also fall under the separate rules administered by the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission.

The rules raise the bar on the controls that regulated platforms are expected to run every day, shifting due diligence from a one-off checkpoint to a continuous obligation across the life of every listed asset.

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