Philippines Crypto Compliance for a U.S. Founder: Begin by Asking Which Regulator Owns the Activity
Position as of 12 August 2026: the Philippines has a virtual-asset framework that distinguishes activities regulated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) from matters within the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). BSP Circular No. 1108 sets guidelines for virtual-asset service providers and says that providers facilitating specified virtual-asset activities fall under BSP regulatory and examination authority, while the circular excludes financial services connected with an issuer’s offer or sale of a virtual asset where those matters are within SEC jurisdiction.[1] For a Philippines-based founder with a U.S. business, that jurisdictional split is the decisive opening question.
The position is in motion. The country’s framework includes BSP Circular No. 1108 and SEC Memorandum Circular No. 4, Series of 2025, but a founder should obtain current materials for the activity being considered rather than treating a date-stamped overview as a settled answer.[1] [2] The relevant starting point is not “Can this U.S. company use crypto?” It is “What will this entity actually do, and which Philippines regulatory question does that activity create?”
The BSP–SEC Boundary Is More Useful Than a Generic Crypto Answer
BSP Circular No. 1108 is specific about the activities it addresses. It covers virtual-asset service providers offering services or undertaking activities in the Philippines, including exchange between virtual assets and fiat currencies, transfer of virtual assets, and safekeeping or administration of virtual assets or instruments enabling control over them.[1] The circular also draws a boundary: financial services connected to an issuer’s offer or sale of a virtual asset are within the SEC’s jurisdiction rather than its own.[1]
That distinction should shape a founder’s first memo. A plan involving exchange, transfer, or custody-type activity raises a different starting question from a plan connected to an issuer’s offer or sale. A product can have more than one feature, and a company can change its activities as it develops. The founder should not decide the answer from a marketing label. The founder should describe the activity in operational terms and identify which entity will perform it, where the activity will be carried out, and which people or businesses will use it.
This approach is especially valuable where the business is linked to the United States. A U.S. company may be the commercial parent, the contracting party, or a counterparty. That fact does not erase the Philippines regulatory question. At the same time, a Philippines-side framework does not decide whether a U.S. bank, platform, customer, or investor will enter a commercial relationship. The company should run those questions separately, using the same factual activity description where useful.
Start With What the Company Does for Other People
A founder should ask whether the proposed activity involves acting for others. The BSP circular’s VASP guidelines are focused on covered service-provider activity, not on every person who holds or encounters a virtual asset.[1] That makes the difference between an internal business decision and a service offered to customers or counterparties important to the initial analysis.
The company should write down whether it plans to exchange assets, facilitate transfers, safeguard assets, administer assets, operate a platform, or offer a product connected with an issuer’s sale. It should identify what the customer sees, what the company controls, and what external providers are involved. It should also set out the expected timing. Those facts will make it easier for a Philippines-qualified adviser or regulator-facing contact to explain which current materials are relevant.
The memo should not say that the company is already approved, outside scope, or exempt. It should not attempt to predict a provider’s response. Its job is to provide the facts needed for a current inquiry. A good first question is: “Our identified entity proposes to conduct this described activity in or from the Philippines; which BSP or SEC materials should govern our assessment?” The answer can then be tied to a defined activity instead of a broad commercial ambition.
The BSP Rules Explain Why the Business Model Matters
BSP Circular No. 1108 treats covered virtual-asset service providers as money service businesses and sets out an authorization framework, alongside operational, consumer-protection, and related requirements for those within its scope.[1] The point for a founder is not to assume that every activity receives the same treatment. It is to understand why a detailed activity description matters before a company launches a customer feature or makes a representation to a commercial counterparty.
The circular also shows why a generic label is insufficient. It distinguishes among exchange, transfer, and safekeeping or administration functions.[1] A company that performs one of those functions may have a different regulatory conversation from a company whose question is tied to an issuer’s offer or sale, which the BSP identifies as a matter within SEC jurisdiction.[1] The practical discipline is to separate the functions before asking a question about the framework.
The Philippine SEC is therefore not an afterthought. The BSP’s own boundary draws the SEC into the initial analysis where an activity is connected to an issuer’s offer or sale of a virtual asset.[1] The SEC’s current issuance material should be checked against the actual commercial plan before the founder relies on an earlier description of the project.[2] This is a process of classification and current confirmation, not a promise that an approval, offering, or customer arrangement will follow.
Keep the Position Dated and the Questions Current
The 12 August 2026 position date should travel with the company’s activity memo. The framework is not static merely because one circular has a number and a date. A founder should recheck current BSP and SEC materials when the role of the entity, the product, the customer journey, or the expected launch date changes. A prior conversation about one activity may not resolve a later question about another.
The company should maintain two separate records. The Philippines record should contain the position date, the activity description, the entity, the regulatory question asked, and the materials returned. The U.S. record should contain the commercial counterparty’s own requirements. A bank’s preference is not a substitute for the BSP–SEC analysis; an understanding of the BSP–SEC boundary is not a promise about the bank’s decision.
The same distinction applies to a company’s internal decision to hold or use virtual assets. That decision may not answer whether the business will offer services to others, facilitate transfers, or be involved with an issuer’s sale. The founder should identify the actual conduct before assuming which part of the Philippines framework applies. If uncertainty remains, a qualified Philippines adviser should be asked to match the facts to current BSP or SEC material rather than to provide a general market view.
The Philippines-Specific Decision Path
The country’s real analytical division is between the activity addressed by BSP’s VASP rules and activity connected with an issuer’s offer or sale that the BSP places with the SEC.[1] That is more useful than a general legal-market description because it tells the founder what must be described before a regulatory question can be answered.
A Philippines-based founder should therefore map the activity, identify the entity and counterparties, and put a focused question to the appropriate current source. In parallel, the founder should ask each U.S. counterparty what it requires for its own relationship. This method keeps the jurisdictional boundary, the changing regulatory environment, and the U.S. commercial workstream in their proper places. It offers a practical next step without making an approval, provider, or transaction promise.
Keep the Regulatory Classification Beside the Institution’s Operating Questions
For a Philippine founder, the company that will carry out the activity should be documented as carefully as the activity itself. The Bureau of Internal Revenue provides tax-registration material and the Securities and Exchange Commission provides company-registration services.[9] [11] The founder should assemble the entity name, registration information, responsible people, proposed product description, customer flow, and source-and-use-of-funds explanation before approaching a BSP-regulated or SEC-regulated counterparty.
The operational file should not be mistaken for a universal bank checklist. BSP supervisory material provides a customer-due-diligence framework, but the available country evidence does not establish one address-document list that every provider will require.[10] A founder should ask the selected institution for the current requirements for the actual business model. The reply should be saved with the entity and product record, because a change in customer role, custody function, or transaction flow can change the question.
Payment planning deserves a separate map. The BSP identifies PESONet and InstaPay in the National Retail Payment System, while foreign-exchange transactions work through authorised agents and their required underlying records depend on the transaction class.[10] A crypto regulatory position does not replace those payment controls. When a U.S. relationship involves a payment or remittance, the founder should provide the agreement and actual transaction facts to the relevant authorised agent and ask what documentation the specific transfer needs.
References
[1]: https://www.bsp.gov.ph/Regulations/Issuances/2021/1108.pdf — Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Circular No. 1108, Guidelines for Virtual Asset Service Providers
[2]: https://www.sec.gov.ph/sec-issuances/ — Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission, current issuances