Philippines bans privacy coins, tightens VASP rules

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Philippines bans privacy coins, tightens VASP rules

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has issued new guidelines that prohibit virtual asset service providers (VASPs) from trading privacy coins as regulators move to bring greater transparency and consumer protection to the country’s digital asset market.

Under the BSP Memorandum No. M-2026-023, the central bank “seeks to clarify regulatory expectations for VASPs” by ensuring due diligence reviews of coins and tokens offered to customers. BSP also prohibited VASPs from offering or listing anonymity-focused virtual assets, most popularly known as privacy coins.

The memorandum is part of BSP’s broader risk management framework for digital currency platforms. Among the guidelines are ongoing monitoring of listed assets and the establishment of internal risk indicators, such as a drop in coin’s value or a decrease in trading activity. If an asset breaches these thresholds, it must undergo a reassessment and may trigger an automatic review or removal from the digital currency platform.

“VASPs are also required to conduct ongoing monitoring of the criteria applied during the listing of virtual assets, and to define thresholds for deviations from these standards, which will act as triggers for the delisting of a virtual asset,” BSP said.

In the new guidelines, the central bank mandates that firms “establish a robust due diligence and accreditation process for selecting the virtual assets (VAs) that will be listed or traded on their platforms.” In this process, every token undergoes rigorous evaluation before it reaches the investing public.

BSP grouped the assessment criteria into six pillars to standardize the evaluation process. It includes the issuer’s background, market maturity, and the use of…

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