There is no easy way so far for Filipinos wanting to buy alternative cryptocurrencies (“Altcoins”) or cryptocurrencies aside from Bitcoin. The boom of Bitcoin now made remittances to international cryptocurrency exchanges restricted by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
This article will guide Filipinos living in the Philippines on how buy alternative coins like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin.
Here are the steps:
Coins.ph is a BSP-accredited local Bitcoin exchange platform in which you can buy and sell Bitcoins. You can also transfer Bitcoins to other exchanges to trade with more cryptocurrency selections.
As with most Cryptocurrency exchange that receives Fiat currency (e.g. Philippine Peso or US Dollars), you need to give your personal details and copies of your ID and documents as proof of residency and identity. This is what you call KYC or Know Your Customers Compliance of most banks and exchanges. This is part of Anti Money Laundering (AML) requirements. As you all know, cryptocurrency can be a medium for criminals to launder money or fund terrorists!
Once you successfully register an account in Coins.ph, you can now fund your wallet with the methods available. You can fund (cash-in) your wallet with the following methods:
I would recommend Bank Transfer for first time users. Dragon Pay Corporation will process the bank deposit after its made. Its like you deposit the cash to Dragon Pay Corporation and Dragon Pay will process it to be in your Coins wallet within 24 hours. You will receive email or SMS confirmation when successful.
You can try other methods but I haven’t tried it yet since the best and cheapest way for me is thru bank transfer.
Once your Peso deposit is reflected in your wallet, you can then convert it to Bitcoin. In Coins.ph you automatically have one wallet for your Peso deposit and another wallet for your Bitcoin. See image below on how to convert the Peso to Bitcoin.
Bitstamp.net has been established since 2011 and has been one of the reliable cryptocurrency exchange. In some countries, you can fund you account using credit card. Both credit card and bank transfer are not available for Filipinos as of posting.
Bitstamp can exchange your Bitcoin into other cryptocurrencies like Ripple XRP, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. You can also exchange your cryptocurrency to US Dollars.
Once you have successfully registered in Bitstamp, you can transfer Bitcoins from your Coins.ph wallet to your Bitstamp account. Please see photo below and follow the 3-steps on how to get the Bitcoin address in Bitstamp.
Copy the bitcoin address generated in Bitstamp. You will paste that one when you send your Bitcoin from Coins.ph.
In Coins.ph, select your BTC wallet and click the send button as shown on the image below.
After that you will be prompted to enter BTC amount and Address. Follow the steps on the image below.
Since the payment will be processed in the blockchain, it will usually be settled in 1-2 hours. Be patient. Please note that there will be processing fee for this so we need to allow for the fee.
Once your BTC are in your Bitstamp account, you can now trade this for other cryptocurrencies like Ripple XRP, Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ethereum (ETH).
Follow the first 3 steps shown in the image below and you can now exchange your Bitcoin to other Cryptocurrencies available in Bitstamp.
There you have it. Enjoy trading. Of course there still other ways to buy altcoins like using your Paypal account and using other Cryptocurrency Exchange other than Bitstamp. I will write a blog about them soon.
6 Comments
Very informative
Great!! Ive been looking for this guide 2 months ago.
Transfering btc from coins.ph to bitstamp have higher fees..
There are other options instead of Coins.ph like Abra, Buybitcoins.ph and Bitbit.
Is there a way back from bitstamp to coinsph?
Yes it can be put back to Coins.ph as long as the coin is supported by Coins. Right now, it is still BTC.