Coins.ph expanding into Australia in 2024

MANILA  —Homegrown cryptocurrency platform Coins.ph is making its way to Australia this year as part of its global expansion amid the growing adoption of digital assets as a form of investment.

In a statement on Monday, the blockchain-backed financial services platform announced its acquisition of an AUSTRAC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center) Digital Currency Exchange registration, a requirement to set up crypto exchange services in the continent.

Coins.ph sees Australia as a key market for the company. Citing a study by Australian-based digital currency exchange Independent Reserve, the number of Australians who claimed to own or have owned crypto rose to 28.8 percent in 2021 from 18.4 percent in 2020.

The company is also looking at capturing the Filipino consumers, which is the fifth largest migrant community in Australia. As of end-June 2021, more than  310,000 Filipinos were living there.

“Coins.ph is primed for global expansion. Our journey began nearly a decade ago in the Philippines and since then, we’ve onboarded 18 million customers and expanded our services in both the digital asset exchange business and in e-wallet services,” said Coins.ph CEO Wei Zhou.

“Our team has top-tier talents with global experience in this industry. We’re thrilled to bring these capabilities to new markets.” he added.

In November last year, Coins.ph reported that its TradeDesk service—an over-the-counter channel for high net worth individuals and institutional clients—breached the $1-billion trading volume. Its clientele are digital asset natives, import-export enterprises, remittance providers and e-commerce merchants.

TradeDesk—which was launched in November last year—offers a variety of digital assets such as USDT, USDC, BTC and ETH. It also supports trading for foreign currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, SGD, AUD and other major fiat currencies.

Minimum trading size is $20,000, with payment options such as banks, e-wallets and Coin.ph’s own wallet.

Launched in 2014, Coins.ph is a crypto exchange regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The adoption of cryptocurrency in the Philippines accelerated during the pandemic because of play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity, according to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. At one point, Filipinos made up about 40 percent of the game’s player base.