The SEC and the Bangko Sentral

The Bangko Sentral licenses providers of virtual asset services. The SEC covers offers to the public of investments and has issued rules for crypto asset service providers. Neither is an insurer of your coins. This page explains which regulator's page answers which question.

The Bangko Sentral's role

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas licenses providers that exchange or transfer virtual assets for the public. This includes crypto exchanges and other businesses that handle virtual assets for customers. The licence is a permission to operate under the central bank's rules.

The Bangko Sentral does not regulate offers of securities or investment contracts. A crypto product that promises returns from the efforts of others may fall under the SEC, not the Bangko Sentral. The reader should check both regulators' pages.

The SEC's role

The Securities and Exchange Commission covers offers to the public of investments, including some crypto assets. The SEC treats some crypto activity as the offering of securities or investment contracts, which then need registration. The SEC has issued rules for crypto asset service providers.

The SEC does not license providers that exchange or transfer virtual assets. That is the Bangko Sentral's job. A venue may need both a licence from the Bangko Sentral and registration with the SEC, depending on what it offers.

Neither is an insurer of your coins

Neither the Bangko Sentral nor the SEC insures your coins. If a venue fails, you may lose the assets held with it. The Bangko Sentral does not operate a deposit insurance scheme for virtual assets, and the SEC does not guarantee returns.

The reader should keep only what they can afford to lose on a venue. A licence or registration is a permission to operate, not a promise of safety. The reader should read the risk warnings and understand the product before sending money.

Which page answers which question

If you want to know who is licensed to exchange or transfer virtual assets, check the Bangko Sentral's list. If you want to know who the SEC has warned about, check the SEC's advisories. If you want to know how long a venue's domain has existed, check the domain date.

This site puts the three records side by side. The reader can compare the licence list, the advisory list, and the domain date for the same venue. Each record answers a different question, and none of them answers the question of whether the venue is safe.

The records are separate

A venue may be on the Bangko Sentral's licence list and also appear in an SEC advisory. The two records are separate. A licence from the Bangko Sentral does not exempt a venue from the SEC's rules, and an SEC advisory does not revoke a Bangko Sentral licence.

The reader should read both records for the same venue. A venue that is licensed but has an advisory against it may be operating in a way that the SEC considers unregistered. The reader should be cautious and seek further information.

What the regulators do not cover

The regulators do not cover every crypto risk. The Bangko Sentral does not insure coins, and the SEC does not guarantee that an investment will make money. The regulators also do not cover foreign venues that do not target the Philippines.

A venue based abroad but serving Filipino users may not be licensed in the Philippines. The reader should check the venue's terms for its legal entity and home regulator. A complaint then travels to a foreign authority.

A licence names a legal entity, not a website

The Bangko Sentral grants a licence to a specific corporation registered in the Philippines. That corporation may operate under a trading name that looks nothing like its registered name, and it may run more than one website or app. The licence list therefore answers a question about the entity, not about a particular domain or brand.

When a venue claims to be licensed, the first practical step is to find the exact legal entity it names. A claim that says only “licensed by the Bangko Sentral” without identifying the corporation is not a claim that can be checked against the list. The licence belongs to a named legal person, and the public record is organised around that person.

This distinction explains why two different-looking websites can both point to one licensed entity, and why one licensed entity can be behind several brands. It also explains why a venue that is not on the list may still be connected to a licensed corporation through a subsidiary, a partner, or a reseller. The record will not show that connection unless the regulator has recorded it.

An SEC advisory is not a finding of wrongdoing

The Securities and Exchange Commission issues advisories when it receives information that an entity may be offering securities or investment products without the necessary registration. The advisory is a public notice, not a ruling. It tells the public that the SEC has not authorised a particular activity and that the entity has not filed the required documents.

The advisory does not conclude that the entity has broken any law. It does not freeze assets, order a shutdown, or cancel a licence. Those actions come from separate proceedings, and they are published in different records. An advisory is best read as a flag that the SEC has identified a registration gap or a possible violation, and that it is telling the public to exercise caution.

Because an advisory is a snapshot of the SEC’s concern at a point in time, it can be withdrawn or updated. A venue that appears in an advisory may later comply, change its business, or prove that the advisory was based on a misunderstanding. The presence of an advisory does not settle the question of whether a venue is safe; it raises the question of whether the venue meets Philippine securities rules.

The domain date is about the name, not the business

A domain creation date records when a particular string of characters was registered with a domain registrar. That string is a name, and the business using it may have existed long before under a different name. A venue that switches from one domain to another will show a fresh creation date even if the people and the operation are unchanged.

This means the domain date cannot tell you how long a crypto venue has been in business. It can only tell you how long that specific web address has been reserved. A venue that rebrands to escape a bad reputation, to align with a new product, or to serve a different market will often register a new domain, and the date will look like the start of a new venture when it is not.

Conversely, a domain can be registered years before it is used for any crypto activity. Someone may hold a name for later use, transfer it to a new owner, or simply let it sit idle. The creation date is a fact about the name, and it needs to be combined with other records before it says anything about the business behind the name.

Advisories target offers, not technology

The SEC’s crypto-related advisories are usually about how a product is marketed and sold, not about the underlying technology. The Commission does not warn against blockchains, tokens, or wallets as such. It warns against schemes that promise returns, recruit investors, or sell tokens that behave like securities without registration.

An advisory will often describe a specific offer: a coin that is being sold to raise funds, a staking programme that guarantees a yield, or a platform that invites the public to pool money. The SEC’s concern is the investment contract, not the software. This is why an advisory can name a venue that uses perfectly ordinary technology and leave unnamed a venue that uses novel technology but makes no investment offer.

For a reader, this means the advisory list is not a list of bad technology. It is a list of offers that the SEC believes fall under securities laws and have not been registered. A venue that simply lets people buy and sell crypto may never appear in an advisory, while a venue that adds a “passive income” feature may appear quickly.

A young domain plus a licence claim is a common pattern

Venues that appear with a newly registered domain often make prominent claims about being licensed or regulated. The claim may be true, false, or misleading. The domain date itself cannot resolve that, but it can tell you how long the claim has been attached to that particular web address. A licence claim on a domain created last month deserves a different kind of checking than the same claim on a domain that has been around for years.

The practical consequence is that a young domain with a licence claim should lead you to the regulator’s own list, not to a screenshot or a certificate posted on the venue’s site. The Bangko Sentral publishes the names of licensed VASPs, and the SEC publishes its advisories. The claim on the venue’s site is not part of either record until the regulator has recorded it.

This pattern is common because a new domain is cheap and quick to register, and a licence claim can be borrowed from a legitimate entity or invented entirely. The domain date is a clue about how long the claim has been visible at that address, and it should push you toward the primary records rather than toward the venue’s own statements.

Checking the regulator’s own site is the last step, not the first

The Bangko Sentral and the SEC both publish their own lists and advisories on their official websites. Those are the primary records. A reader who starts by searching the web for a venue’s name may find many secondary sources: news articles, review sites, social media posts, and the venue’s own marketing. None of those replace the regulator’s own publication.

The order of operations should be: identify the legal entity behind the venue, then check the Bangko Sentral’s list for that entity, then check the SEC’s advisories for that entity or for the product being offered. The domain date can be checked at any point, but it is most useful when compared against the dates on the regulator’s records. If a venue claims a licence that appears nowhere on the central bank’s list, the domain date is not the deciding factor; the absence from the list is.

This site presents the records side by side so that the reader can make that comparison without leaving the page. But the final confirmation should always be on the regulator’s own site, because that is the only place where the record is updated directly by the institution that created it.

A BSP licence and an SEC advisory can sit on the same venue

A venue can appear on the Bangko Sentral's list and still be named in an SEC advisory. The two regulators look at different things, and one does not cancel the other. The central bank asks whether a business can handle virtual assets under its rules. The SEC asks whether a scheme looks like it is selling unregistered securities to the public.

This overlap confuses many readers who expect a single clean answer. A licensed virtual asset service provider might later offer a token that the SEC considers an investment contract. That token sale can draw an advisory while the firm keeps its BSP licence for other activities. The records are not reconciled by either agency.

When you see both a licence and an advisory for one name, read them as two separate findings. The licence covers the venue's status as a virtual asset service provider. The advisory covers a specific offering or practice the SEC flagged. Neither document tells you the whole story, and neither agency vouches for the other.