Topic: Philippines bans Binance (Read 329 times)

If they are facing issue in a number of countries after the drama between them and the SEC, they will not have an easy ride. There are too many countries, each with their own rules/regulations that I think Binance is not respected and trusted as much as the owners believe it is and it clearly has very little clout when it comes to those making the political decisions.

Other exchanges should keep an eye on the situation because of it is Binance under the microscope today, it could be their exchange being scrutinised tomorrow.

Binance users in Indonesia can still use the application but Android smartphone users cannot update the new version of the application via the Play Store.
Binance exchange in Indonesia is not registered with the country's legal entity so that the application is no longer available on Playstore is a natural thing.

Through the Telegram group, they said that Indonesian Binance Exchange users can still download and update the Binance Exchange application via the default apps store such as the Galaxy Store, Oppo Store, Xiaomi Store and other stores.

I think if Binance is illegal because it doesn't get an operating permit in every country it operates in, it's better to just withdraw it even though Binance is very famous for features that are familiar to users.

Yeah, I understand that mate. The country should go first and they should operate legally here in our country for our government to get some benefits from getting liquidity, and trading activities in our region. I've read that Binance isn't doing any necessary action and it's from the one of the staff of our SEC. I don't know if he's saying real stuff about the compliance but that's what I've read somewhere with his statements regarding this issue of Binance and soon they're going to do actions of banning the access to the app too. They're right, they're just doing the right thing that the country has no benefit at all unless Binance really does. Honestly, I was in hope that they're taking necessary actions but hearing that, it just broke my expectations. 

I quite understand you and also share in the pain of the Philipines, but, I repeat, your country must come first. I share in the pain because it happens in my country too. The P2P initiative and even the direct internal transfer to our bank account from Binance and other exchanges are the best, they have the Buying and Belling prices that are good with a very ridiculous spread in most cases. This means that you part ways with a very little amount of money if you Buy today and Sell tomorrow, or Sell today and Buy tomorrow. This obviously put an end to the undue dominance of the local exchanges that I can only term "Rippers and Extortioners."

I started using the local exchangers services many years even before the introduction of Bitcoin and I've exchanged a whole lot of different digital assets with them. The service is always the same, even as they dominate the market in the manner of no competition but for ripping purposes. Crypto exchanges however put an end to that. For you to understand how bad it was in my country ($), imagine, quoting the Buying price of an asset to be $2,000 and the Selling price to be $1550, leaving us with the Spread/Charges of $450. Is that not wickedness? That's what the government is forcing us into again. Well, let's just take it as collateral damage, a price that must be paid before exchanges do the needful, because our governments are not at fault here, they are only demanding for their rights.

It's because the local exchanges have a larger spread and the rates are better with Binance. Can't control the minds of the people if they say that for real and they're everywhere if there are news on it that are posted on social media, mostly swarmed by our fellow countrymen that don't like the decision but anyway, there's a new update that even the app will be banned soon.

They're pushing it through.
https://bitpinas.com/regulation/sec-binance-app/

I'm not so familiar with the legal nitty-gritty of registering a crypto exchange here. What I know is that there are crypto exchanges here that got the nod of the central bank. In other words, they're registered, licensed to operate. In which case, they're bound by laws, policies, and regulations of government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the central bank (BSP), among others. Binance isn't one of them.

Admittedly, this ignorant and incompetent country doesn't have updated laws. What we have are archaic laws that haven't kept up with the times. But the point is that crypto exchanges could still obtain licenses to operate. They may be classified as Remittance and Transfer Company (RTC) or as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP). What's important is that they're legally operating. Binance could have obtained such a license. But it chose not to.

Guess I missed all of this news, and I always hate to see shit like this go down.  But how is it that Binance is/was operating illegally in the Philippines?  Is it simply because they're "unregistered"?  I'm not even sure what that means, since I don't know what the laws are in that country regarding crypto and specifically what it takes for an exchange to gain legitimacy.

Yeah, that's a smoke screen right there.  There's no government on the face of the planet that cares so much about relatively small crypto investors that they've got to ban their citizens from using one of the biggest and reputable exchanges out there.  It's the same old story: crypto threatens fiat, which has to be protected at all costs. 

Any updates on this one?

In regarding on the ban, is it possible that they could really be able to ban on accessing Binance through their app? Im still able to access Binance via app or this ban didnt push through.?
SEC does really love on trying out to stir things up specially on Philippines where government officials are really that corrupt. They do really always loving on stirring up in regarding
about cryptocurrency dealings just because they cant really be able to extract out taxes on which people do really skip out on doing so.

If they would really be tending to ban it completely then people would really be making use of VPN but of course it would really be something that
risky for the users side which we know that once banned then accessing would really be indeed a violation.

Bro, above all reasons, sentiments, wants and wishes, your country must come first. Damn what the citizens are saying about it or the benefits they get from Binance, the exchange cannot reap from the country and not remit the needful taxes for the benefit of the country. It is either they allow the fortune to be well distributed among the concerned parties, or they forget about the relationship with your country. It is never too much for your country's government to ask from an exchange. But it was certain Binance didn't want to cooperate with them after giving them enough time and even extending the grace by an extra month. They seem to want to gain ALL which is so selfish.

Also, they might be afraid of the money laundering activities that could be uncovered if they allow the country's government to oversee a lot, which is normal. You can see what is happening with the US branch of exchanges and how they uncover a lot of cheating, price manipulation and illicit financial flows. I wonder how rotten the global branches of these exchanges would be. It would be so unspeakable, is this what a responsible government would allow to be going on unabated despite having a link to their country?

While that's true that the PH SEC did the right thing of informing of their plans several months ago but most of the citizens didn't like what they did because it's known that there are a lot of users in here.

And that's the same here, despite the domain ban. Many are still able to connect and access through the app so I guess our NTC did just banned the domain and not the entire thing that's related to Binance and only them can do the rest.

I agree to you with that, that we should only have our coins in our wallets. But compared to our local exchanges, Binance seems better in many aspects.

They basically made it impossible for Australians to deposit at Binance. The big four banks here have stopped the ability to deposit to Binance. 

To be fair, this is a good thing. Binance is a dodgy exchange (like many); you should only have your coins in a wallet. Don't gamble them through an exchange. 

I must say that I love what the government of the Philippines is doing, the situation is similar to that of Nigeria but the steps taken by the Philippines' government are mature and polite. This is the right way to tackle the situation, unlike the Nigerian government's approach. I've said it, if my government handled the situation well to demand their right in the right way, I will be the first to support them and stop using Binance immediately even if they do not block access to their domain. The Philippines' government had tried enough to give it time even though it may not be appropriate to include the US government in this context. It is their right to make Binance or any other companies accountable just like what the US did. This will help them to know the inflow and outflow, curb money laundry and be able to get their correct tax.

Not that the company will earn big from the citizens and give the government nothing, that is bad. Now, the awkward thing is that, just like yours, they banned the domain in my country but the app is still working. That's ill indeed. Till today, I still have access to the Binance app despite my country's ban of the Binance domain for over a month.

But the thing now is, he's no longer part of Binance and he's not a CEO anymore. The new CEO is Richard Teng.

As much as we're putting hope that this is the last negative news that we'd see. But every bull run we see dozens of these news from region to region with what the local government sees a need for them to address this to the exchange having some benefits with their citizens and not giving back or comply to their regulations for such licenses, taxes, etc.

Asia, Europe, the average cases faced by Binance are almost the same, taxes and regulations, money laundering and so on in these regions, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao should think and act professionally in handling every problem that occurs with Binance, considering that Binance has now received a positive view from its users, is this the end of the exchange in the eyes of the public.

The same problem never stops with the local government banning/closing Binance, currently in the Philippines, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, which other country will publish a ban on Binance, actually things like this are already saturated in seeing negative news about Binance, I just hope this is the last news we see and hope that in the future all parties involved have a positive solution to the exchanges operating in their respective countries.

Exactly. Some users that I know are still using Binance until now despite it being banned and blocked. Of course, there are ways to circumvent the implementation, but I don't think it is worth the risk. After all, there are abundant alternatives available to them. Why would they insist on a platform that's banned? KuCoin and Bybit, for example, are also growing in popularity within the country. They're centralized and requiring KYC as well, but that was the same with Binance.

Plus, of course, there are also better P2P alternatives.

That's right, we can use VPN and still access Binance but many are hesitant in doing it because Binance might disable the account. But some of our countrymen have said that there's no problem doing that but even I, I won't do that. As for the DNS, you're right, there have been tutorials out there that were already spread about modifying it for us to still continue accessing Binance. Good thing that I have already pulled my balances there. I just missed receiving airdrops there at most times because it's effortless as long as you have stake your BNB into their launchpool/vault.

If you are using a VPN, your ISP provider won't be able to see you're using Binance, except if you make some mistakes by trying to connect the exchange before launching your VPN for example. But a simple way to solve the problem definitely is to configure DNS-over-HTTPS protocol in your browser, there won't be any risk of any leak anymore and the speed of your connection won't be affected. Philippines' citizens don't even need a VPN to circumvent those restrictions if they use this protocol.

So far only few countries were restricted by binance, even though some countries already banned binance but users from these countries still uses the exchange. The worst case is if the country it self is very strict that it will make warrants to those who still using the exchange base on the ISP logs.

The only safest way is to avoid using such platform, instead use other alternatives.

Since the decision has been made, it is a matter of time before all services implement it, and I do not think that a service provider will not comply with the ban, so it is a matter of hours before access to the site becomes blocked, and even access using a VPN will work for a period before Binance decides to implement the ban on its part based on KYC data.
The only solution is to have proof of residence outside the Philippines, and here you can contact the support team to tell them that you are outside the country and the ban does not apply to you.

The Philippines have more like 4 major ISP, 2 (Smart/PLDT and Globe) of them already blocked, I used Converge and the website is still accessible to me, but i'm not using binance so it doesn't matter to me.

They are still accessible, in fact i always use Kucoin, but surely, they will come later soon.

EDIT: Just now I tried to access Binance and it can't be reached anymore so, Converge probably join them.

The ban suddenly came out when no one has expected it to happen this on an instant although several months ago there was the warning already.

Nope, they're not popular at all but they're unregistered so they've tasted the first wave.

The problem is Binance isn't telling a thing or two and we don't even know their stance or what actions they do. But with the access through app, I guess that they'd still be fine accepting and allowing Philippine residents to their exchange even if the ban was enforced. I wouldn't advise people that are from here to use VPN though.

AFAIK, no official statement from binance yet and local accounts plus services remains working fine as of writing.

I've seen a few screenshots of conversation with binance support but it's all canned answers lol, something along the lines of we are aware of the issue yada yada.


My guess is, negotiations weren't as smooth sailing since Philippine SEC said they will give binance 3 three months with a possibility of an extension depending on the feedback they get.

most of us look at OKx and bybit accounts as the alternative to Binance. its always the p2p that matters for the users since it's the first to look for to trade the coins for cash.

it will be good to see more alternatives actually as we are also not sure when these two are going to be hit by the regulation. if binance will be blocked, sure thing these two are not exceptional to be considered by the government.

If Binance still accepts customers from the Philippines, then people can still use it through VPN, even if the government bans the apps and websites. But Binance won't go against government rules to avoid problems. Are other exchanges still accessible there? If so, Binance may resolve the issue even if they need to pay a penalty. Because they won't leave their customers this way. I believe a lot of Binance users are from the Philippines, where Binance makes revenue. Is there any Binance reaction? I just heard the news but am still unaware of Binance's reaction. 

Perhaps we need to wait for a couple more days? because PH NTC did give five days for the ISP's to comply

According from a previous interview, they apparently have a long list

But a wait and see approach sounds like it's not gonna happen anytime soon lol. The next exchanges to be issued a warning were obscure to me as well -- OctaFX and MiTrade, or are they supposed to be popular for the locals?

With the use VPN, it's still accessible.

I don't think that they'll ban us when many of our countrymen have said that they still got their funds on them.

Yes, they're all fine except Binance. It seems more of targeting binance only but we don't know if they'll be next.

They're on the hot seat now and I think the issue is always on how compliant they are. They're not yet registered here and AFAIK, they are already doing something about it.

Just to add some note here, there's one local exchange here that has a CEO now who's a former Binance executive.

That's what we will tune out next. After hitting Binance, will our government chase the other international exchanges? We don't know but I'd agree about them being ignorant and incompetent.

That's right, the issue of Binance here in country is simple. We've got local exchanges and they're required to get a VASP license from our Central Bank.
And that's what Binance needs to get for them to be operational here and be legal. Now, the application has been closed and no new company can take it as they've closed down the application last year IIRC. And AFAIK, Binance tried to apply for that but I'm not sure if they're able to make it before the deadline but with this action, it seems that they fail.

Now, what I've heard is that there's still an option for Binance and that's to take any of those registered VASP licensed exchanges because some of them are no longer operational and our country had removed like 2-3 of those licenses from the registered. Maybe, our government or SEC will offer it to them but for at what price? That's why I believe that they're trying something to clean this mess. And I hate to admit it, corruption in our country is no longer a secret and under the tables have become normal when it's come to these processes.

So, it is more of a ban than non-compliance with legal legislation,  Binance will soon try to comply with the order or try to negotiate better working conditions with the government, and if the government does not provide better alternatives, instead of trying to “secure Filipinos’ investment funds,” it will push them to use unknown services that may It leads many people to lose their money faster.

In general, I expect it will be similar to what happened in India, where some exchanges will comply, but if there is someone from the Philippines who has more details, it would be better.

Philippines government is too lazy to file a case against Binance that’s why they are just using ISP to block the website which can be easily bypass by VPN. Also Binance still doesn’t ban PH users and I think they don’t have plan to do it until SEC will file a complaint against them or request to ban PH user.

So far we can still access Binance even on regular IP without the use of VPN. All other exchange including Binance is still accessible for us. I think only some users is affected by this minor which are those who use Globe network for internet connection. Our SEC is not that scary compared to US Sev or EU regulator.

What a ban joke here in PH. 

Even before the US imposed a huge fine for both CZ and Binance, Binance's situation in the Philippines has already been shaky, as it was in many countries all over the world. It has been investigated before. Binance has already been called out for operating illegally.

This isn't about the US fining Binance. This is about the Philippine authorities being incompetent and ignorant. To a certain extent, Binance is suffering because it is popular. It is illegally operating, yes, but so are the dozens of other centralized exchanges. If Binance users would transfer to another centralized exchange, say, Bybit or KuCoin, can they do that? Yes, because these exchanges are still accessible to Filipino citizens even though they're all operating on an equal footing with Binance.


If I'm not mistaken, it is still accessible via VPN. As mentioned, Binance app also remains accessible. But it might just be a matter of time before Binance responds to the government's actions and avoid serving residents of the Philippines.

It seems that binance is having more issues with different countries after CZ resigned as the CEO. Actually, CZ created many problems for the exchange he founded and now is the repercussion time. Is Binance still gonna be in existence in few years time? In my country, the government has detained some Binance executives. Removed Naira trading spot and deposit and withdrawal to with naira.

What happens when you try to visit the exchange using a VPN service? Have they (Binance) also banned users from the Philippines yet? There's another country the Binance banned from using their platform. If I recall well, it's Nigeria. Apparently, the arrested two of their executives. Imagine!  

How about other platforms like Kucoins, coinbase, Bybit. Are they still accessible?

Yes, our country has banned the access to Binance and this was raised since last year of November by SEC. But after the deadline given for 3 months, they didn't banned it immediately but just a day or two ago they did pushed for the ban. Most of the ISPs that we've got have totally banned to doing a visit to Binance's website and there's this message when I've first tried accessing it yesterday that I might be reported to the authorities. But upon paying a visit today, it's just a total domain error. I guess that our government just want a chunk out of the fine they've made with the US SEC as our government tries to acquire as much taxes that they can for the funding of a newly proposed government investing program.

The SEC Has Officially Banned Crypto Giant Binance in the Philippines


PS: The Binance app is still accessible for some locals.