MANILA, Philippines — By early June, traders of Coins.ph will be able to buy and sell the country’s first Philippine peso-backed cryptocurrency as the digital asset exchange seeks to provide an alternative option for cross-border remittances.
Wei Zhou, CEO of the homegrown virtual asset service provider, announced on Wednesday they have secured the approval from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to issue PHPC, a Philippine peso stable coin.
Stable coins are cryptocurrencies whose value is tied to another currency, commodity, or financial instrument.
In this case, PHPC is supported by the Philippine peso, which will dictate the cryptocurrency’s value on trading. One unit of the stable coin is worth P1.
Zhou explained that stable coins, given their nature, maintain a steady value—an ideal case for trading and storing value.
“PHPC will empower Filipinos to transact seamlessly and securely in the digital economy while also providing a stable store of value as they participate in the rapidly evolving digital asset landscape,” he said.
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Among the target clients for this product offering are the overseas Filipino workers who send money home to their loved ones.
Zhou said Filipinos abroad could instead send PHPC, which could be less costly as the recipient will no longer have to translate the foreign currencies into Philippine peso.
30,000 customers within the first month
“While PHPC presents a variety of potential applications and trading payments, we anticipate remittances to be a foremost use case for Filipinos as PHPC will not only reduce costs, it also means that now, peso transactions can happen 24/7 and in real-time,” Zhou added.
Within the first month of PHPC’s launch, Coins.ph is hoping to secure 20,000 to 30,000 customers.
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Zhou noted the crypto market has been showing optimism with the approval of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the United States, which has enabled Bitcoin to be traded via traditional regulated securities exchanges.
As of writing, Bitcoin rose by 0.86 percent to P3.6 million per token.
Coins.ph, a crypto exchange regulated by the BSP, was launched in 2014. It is the first company of its kind in Asia to secure both virtual currency and electronic money issuer licenses from a central bank. The company has also secured licenses to operate in Europe, Latin America, Australia, and Africa. INQ