Coins.ph expands QRPh to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum in Philippines payments

Published: 2026-05-20 15:56:38 |

Coins.ph has expanded its Philippines QR payments network (QRPh) by adding Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to merchants, following earlier stablecoin support. Announced May 19, the update lets users scan QRPh codes at participating merchants and converts crypto balances to Philippine pesos automatically at checkout, avoiding any manual fiat conversion. The rollout builds on Coins.ph’s prior QRPh integration of USDT earlier this year. The company estimates it now covers around 700,000 merchants using QRPh. Coins.ph positions QRPh as a unified payment flow for everyday use, while keeping stablecoins central to remittance-style use cases in a country with roughly $38B in annual remittance inflows. From a compliance standpoint, Coins.ph operates under BSP oversight as a licensed Virtual Asset Service Provider and Electronic Money Issuer. For traders, the key takeaway is that QRPh increases real-world payment optionality for BTC and ETH on top of existing stablecoin rails—more adoption access, but likely limited immediate price impact.

Neutral

The latest update is an adoption-oriented product expansion: QRPh now supports BTC and ETH at roughly 700,000 merchants, using an automatic conversion flow to PHP at checkout. That can improve real-world spendability and liquidity routing for BTC and ETH, which is mildly supportive for longer-term narratives. However, the mechanics described still rely on stablecoins being central to remittance-style rails, and the conversion to PHP at checkout means users are not necessarily accumulating BTC/ETH exposure via the payment system. Historically, payment-rail upgrades tend to be more sentiment-positive than immediately price-driving unless they translate into sustained spot demand. So for BTC and ETH specifically, the expected impact is likely limited in the short term (neutral), with potential gradual support over time if merchant usage scales and conversion flows consistently drive additional on-chain demand.